A melange of influences make this distinct and precise album something of its own despite the strange echoes. The chameleon voice transversing cinematically vast different landscapes with guitars, electronic effects, patterns of rock, soul, alt and IDM-and a voice that transcends persons. An impressive debut.
Every once in a while, a debut LP proverbially knocks the little cotton socks clean off your feet. It doesn’t happen very often, and it’s not always a pleasant experience, but in the case of Petite Noir’s 11-track masterpiece; pleasantries would be far from enough. La Ville est Belle / Life is Beautiful is fucking gold in every way, shape, and form.
Listening to the LP for the first time, it’s clear to see that the half-Congolese, half-Angolan, South African-based newcomer (born; Yannick Ilunga) has no problems with confidence – at least not musically. The boldness of what he himself calls ‘Noirwave’ represents a “new African aesthetic” – more of a movement than a sound, which expresses freedom at its very core. Something that self-reportedley influenced Ilunga from an early age.
Captured perfectly by the aptly-titled “Freedom”, the broody synths are juxtaposed expertly with a rapturous African beat that would get even stiffest foot tapping. And these African beats – inspired by the likes of Fela Kuti and Tabu Ley (aka. not white, middle-class ‘African' beats) – act as the pulse of the audacious and eclectic offering. The best of which can be found in the infectious “MDR”, whose familiar "Cos you’re the one that I want/You’re the one that I need" chorus playfully frames the track – and puts a certain Danny and Sandy’s version to shame. Yes – it’s that good.
Yannick Ilunga has positioned himself as the frontman of a new genre: noirwave. This isn’t quite in the same league as Vaporwave, Seapunk, or any other such internet spawned and shaped sound. Instead, Ilunga has trademarked Noirwave to pose himself as peerless. The mixture of South African roots and 80s synth pop certainly is a novel enough mixture, but it’s Ilunga’s own innate talent that truly pushes his persona past his contemporaries.
Ilunga’s Petite Noir project first gained “next big thing” buzz when he released The King of Anxiety EP. Despite the title, Petite Noir sounded fully formed with a brimming, bright confidence to boot. The King of Anxiety wasn’t just a sampler platter of future sounds, it was an excellent release in its own right, filled with beautifully crafted singles like “Chess” and “Shadows”. La Vie Est Belle / Life is Beautiful refuses to reuse most of the work from The King of Anxiety which seems like a foolhardy move on the surface, after all, why wouldn’t you want more people listening to “Shadows”? but Ilunga is full of hooks, riffs, and more rattling percussion than you can shake a stick at. Make no mistake, along with Shamir’s Ratchet, this is one of 2015’s finest pop gems.
Speaking of Shamir, the heavenly voiced Las Vegas native might be one of the few artists in Ilunga’s league. That does come down to an ear for shimmering production, but, more importantly, both of them have two of the most distinct and hypnotizing voices in recent memory. That breaks down into two parts: the first is just their registers. While Shamir has the angelic pipes of a choir boy lost in the clouds, Ilunga’s range is much wider and darker. His natural baritone is on full display throughout La Vie Est Belle, moaning and lurching right along with the rhythms, working with lust and dread in equal amounts. But there are the sudden bursts of light, when Ilunga reveals a stunning vocal range, best shown on lead single “Best” where Ilunga’s cry of “Please just go back home!” is punctuated by booming drums.
What makes La Vie est Belle so vital is Ilunga’s songcraft, his flexibility and ability to push at the bounds of that recognisable framework. From the word go it’s on display: a lightness of touch with atmospheric sounds cultivating the tension-and-release of ‘Intro–Noirwave’, alternately tightening and loosening the screws of the dance-vibes of ‘Down’, the glorious, steadily-build of closer ‘Chess’, that starts like the itchy, subdued R&B of Kwes. and ends up feeling like a gloriously fresh peak-Silent Alarm-era Bloc Party cut.
Alongside this craft, there’s also the connoisseurship of Ilunga’s influences and references points. There are guitars that equally nod to both post-punk revival (‘Just Breathe’) and the South African blues of Philip Tabane (‘Colour’); beats that have the tinny clatter of DJ Mujava (‘Down’) and Congolese soukous syncopations (‘MDR’); a French-language rap here (‘La Vie Est Belle’) or darkly glistening touches of 4AD synth-pop (‘Seventeen’) there; weird clips of conversation and gigantic sing-along choruses. Each of these elements are deployed throughout with both fine-tuned balance and confidently at odds, summed up in the loud-quiet dynamic of ‘Best’: subdued verses on second and great stabs of brass the next.
It’s done with a sleight-of-hand that indicates not only Ilunga’s immense talent, but also that these seemingly disparate forces are simply the tools he has at his disposal. This is 'world music' in that it’s recognisably born of our globalised modern world, the pairing of a ferocious appetite for the new with the ability to do just that within a few mouse clicks: making the world smaller by revealing just how endlessly large it is.
“I’m just talking about change, everything wiped away"
From this situation, Ilunga is free to be inspired by and use everything that precedes and lies ahead of it, and so he thrives in the middle-ground between cohesion and conflict both sonically and thematically. In fact, that idea of synthesis is the common thread throughout. It’s in the gender fluidity of his alias, Petite Noir, a meeting of the grammatically male and female, and the pairing of ideas in the titles of his records - break-out EP The King of Anxiety indicating supremacy over negativity, his debut La Vie Est Belle / Life is Beautiful multi-lingual as a departure lounge. It’s there even his vocals: a sturdy baritone that can soar upwards into an airy falsetto, a range that lends itself expertly to the ‘he said / she said’ of ‘Chess’.
Comments