Traveled to Paris again today, as I make my way to my mother’s, after 9 months of being separated by covid. But first staying at my girlfriend’s, together with her roommates, our beloved duo Sorok Pervyï. As we came together to make some delicious gyoza, Antoine played some records. As always, quite the selection. As a first example, he introduced me to Cortex, a French jazz fusion group from the 70’s. He has a copy of their album Pourquoi, released in 1978, which sits comfortably with the presupposed funky vibes of the era, here is for instance the first track: Sans Toi.

Cortex - Sans Toi (1978)

Quite some vibes and it’s also both eerie and lovely to hear some French lyrics on top of such a funk track, in particular the long chorus at the end with super cheesy lines like Sans toi le Sud serait le Nord (without you South would be North). Ahah gotta love the aura surrounding this genre, again a good fit for some nice afternoon chill at Romain’s, definitely need to buy him this record, and recommend you not to stop at the first track as there’s plenty more where it’s coming from!

Anyway! Another good record Antoine took for a spin this evening was Mallard - Verte, which got me intrigued right away as I recognized the logo of the label: Rhythmic Section International, which we discussed back in March to celebrate 3/03 through their SHOUTS release. The whole EP was a blissful experience, as the bandcamp release describes it is [e]qually at ease on the dance-floor as it would be for an introverted headphone session.

Mallard - Untitled (Breaks) (2017)

My pick from his EP, Untitled, is a lush and esoteric breaks track. Drum programming and production in general showcase a lot of finesse, turning this otherwise minimalist track into quite a journey, with a bit of all kinds of genres, the part near 04:00 being very reminiscent of dreamy dub techno for instance. I would highly recommend listening to the whole EP cover to cover though, as the entire EP has a consistent atmosphere worth experiencing as a whole.