Geneva’s psych sonic explorers L’Éclair come through with a guest playlist.
The six-piece band comprises Sebastien Bui (keys), Stefan Lilov (guitar), Yavor Lilov (drums), Alain Sandri (percussion, keys), Quentin Pilet (percussion) and Elie Ghersinu (bass).
A heady mixture of enlivening grooves and vivid OST-style invention awaits those who have yet to dive into the trove of L’Éclair’s young but divergent discography.
They return next month with their latest full-length Confusions, a sprawling fourteen-track romp through their diverse record collection, presenting their most carefully crafted and detailed release to date.
We’ve been gifted with a selection of musical inspirations from the band ahead of the release of their upcoming LP. Their selections span many eras and genres, with the playlist featuring tracks from Curtis Mayfield to Vanishing Twin.
Tune in and enjoy below!
1) Curtis Mayfield – Give Me Your Love (Love Song): You always have to start with something, and it had to be Curtis, definitively the grooviest music ever. His Superfly soundtrack has been a big influence for us.
2) Dorothy Ashby – Come Live With Me: We admire her way of playing the harp with the super catchy easy-jazz arrangements her songs have. Most of her albums are continuously playing on our turntables. Classic!
3) El Michels Affair – Masterclass: One of the best producers nowadays. His last album was something of a chef-d’oeuvre, and this new track embodies more & more his progression into blending different sounds & genres, which is something we appreciate a lot.
4) Can – One More Night: Hard to choose one of their many incredible songs but this one has maybe a more easy-listening approach even though it has their specific crazy repetitive rhythm and a superb chords progression.
5) Four Tet – Glasshead: Recently discovered this single, I think it’s one of the first tracks He’s released. An amazing mixture between krautrock, breakbeat and free-jazz samples. The drums on this track are extremely well produced.
6) Nihiloxica – Nilo Chung: One of the great releases of the Nyege Nyege Tapes label based in Uganda. A wall of sounds mixing heavy percussions layers and more industrial techno sounds which makes this track sound really original.
7) Sébastien Tellier – Fantino: One of the most beautiful ballads ever written. We’ve been fans of his work since years now, and it was hard not to choose La Ritournelle for this playlist ..but this track is really something else.
8) Sade – Cherish the Day: This track has a huge bassline. We love the way Sade’s tracks are mostly simple arrangements, really spot on chords and hooks that will stay in your head forever. And the fusion between drum machines and live drumming is particularly brilliant on this one.
9) Nelly Furtado – Say It Right: Classic club banger from Timbaland and Nelly Furtado. The heavy bass music approach on this super pop song has been weirdly enough really influential for our new LP.
10) Piero Piccioni – Eros: We’ve obviously said many times how much We love Italian library music, but We had to put this one in the mix. Taken from Colpo Rovente, a slightly less known soundtrack of his. We were particularly amazed by the vocal arrangements on this track. It nearly sounds like a super obscure synthesizer at some point…enjoy the trip.
11) Varnish La Piscine – KISS: Huge track from Geneva’s Wonderboy. A friend and collaborator of us. You should definitively check his beats for Makala, a Geneva rapper We like a lot. We can’t wait to hear his next solo EP on Ed Bangers Rec.
12) Vanishing Twin – Cryonic Suspension May Save Your Life: Love this band so much! Their sound, compositions, choices of instruments and aesthetics are always really classy. This one has a really nice build-up, with lots of weird sequences before entering into an amazing locked groove.
13) Lata Mangeshkar – Ghand Phir Nikla Magar Tum Na Aaye: A beautiful Bollywood song that shows the infinite possibilities of melodies and vocal arrangements of this singer. Really inspiring !!
14) Sueno Latino, Manuel Goettsching – Sueno Latino (Paradise Version): Finishing off with a club classic. Kraut Italien House madness which has inspired us for our live shows a lot.
