Saez
Jours étranges

THE REVIEW

I have always had a terrible relationship with France, or at least with the French; it was my firm conviction that Serge Gainsbourg, François Truffaut, and Daniel Pennac were more than enough in my understanding of French culture.
Then a friend of mine gets a French girlfriend, goes to meet les parents and comes home smeared with foie-gras and holding a CD by a certain Damien Saez.
Jours étranges quickly made me forget all the goliardic prejudices about France, indeed it took exactly the time of one listening.

The start is blazing with Jeune et Con, fast on its perfect electro/acoustic melody for opening the dance to the first timid hints of electronics in the lively Sauver Cette étoile (with a "na-na-na-na" that I struggle to get out of my head), then everything becomes calm on the notes of a piano interspersed with a distant martial drumming, echo games and small electronic loops blend with violins, guitars, and Damien's voice in a perfect climax with a vaguely Radiohead-like flavor, it was the title track Jours étranges that changes direction, a small corner where you get stuck just long enough to get used to it, because this album is full of perfect corners.
J'veux M'en Aller starts hard and then lays like a carpet on the calmer territories sometimes pianistic sometimes electric/electronic of Hallelujah, Crépuscule and Soleil 2000. The machines take over in the gallops of loops and effects of Amandine II and Rock n'Roll Star to then melt again in the soft pianistic jazz of My Funny Valentine.
The album closes with two tracks that well represent the intimate side of Saez's rock: a melancholic arpeggio in Montée Là-haut and a pianistic lullaby in Petit Prince.

I love albums like this, those that surprise you and stimulate you to look beyond, that suggest new paths, and that let themselves be discovered listen after listen in all their details, it's like meeting and getting to know a new person, the best way to listen to music.