-=- SHGZ -=- * Shoegaze * Indie * Post-Rock * Grunge * Dream Pop * Psych-Rock * Ethereal * ARTIST..: Maxwell Farrington & Le SuperHomard ALBUM...: Once GENRE...: Pop STYLE...: Baroque Pop, Chamber Pop, Indie Pop YEAR....: 2021 LABEL...: Talitres COUNTRY.: France FORMED..: 2019, France ENCODER.: LAME 3.100 -V0 BITRATE.: 276 kbps avg QUALITY.: 44.1kHz / Joint Stereo SOURCE..: CD TRACKS..: 12 SIZE....: 73.92 MB URL..: https://www.facebook.com/lesuperhomard https://www.facebook.com/maxwellfarringtonmusic https://superhomard.com https://www.hop-blog.fr/maxwell-farrington-et-le-superhomard-once - TRACKLIST 1 We, Us The Pharaohs 2:37 2 North Pole 3:11 3 Free Again 2:53 4 Lights & Seasons 3:23 5 Love 3:32 6 La Mesa Motel (Feat. Max Meser) 3:10 7 Good Start 2:50 8 Oysters 2:29 9 Hips 3:02 10 Happening Again 3:00 11 Big Ben (Feat. Evelyn Ida Morris) 3:08 12 Tonight 4:01 Total Playtime: 37:16 "If you love early '70s Scott Walker, Lee Hazlewood and other grandly orchestrated baritones, you're going to dig 'Once'" Brooklyn Vegan. "Gallic pop-psych voyager conspires with Aussie crooner." Mojo **** * Once is a 12-track album released in 2021, credited to Maxwell Farrington & Le SuperHomard. It's a collaborative effort between French producer Christophe Vaillant (Le SuperHomard) and Australian vocalist Maxwell Farrington. The album blends elements of mid-century pop, cinematic narrative pop, and sophisticated continental pop, evoking the styles of Tom Jones, Lee Hazlewood, and Scott Walker. * Released in early 2019 on the Spanish label Elefant Records, Meadow Lane Park was the debut album by Avignon-based Christophe Vaillant under his new entity, Le SuperHomard. Undoubtedly dreamlike and enchanting, hailed by critics both in France and abroad, and by Paul Weller (who invited the group on his entire European tour), the musician laid the groundwork for a new artistic direction. Originally from Brisbane, Maxwell Farrington left Australia in 2013, travelling to the United Kingdom and then France. After Marseille and Toulouse, he moved to Saint-Brieuc and took part in the formation of Dewaere, a noise quartet bathed in 90s influences. Maxwell's vocals bring a poppier and warmer touch. Christophe and Maxwell met during a joint concert at La Boule Noire, on the MaMA Festival in 2019. During his band's sound check, the Australian performed an acapella version of a song by American composer Burt Bacharach. This lead to an engaging conversation between the two musicians, who discussed their common passion for Lee Hazlewood, Scott Walker and Frank Sinatra. We find this elegance again reiterated throughout these compositions - in the orchestral pop, the subtle arrangements, the velvet singing voice. "Once" is a four-handed collaboration. Recording began in February 2020, ending within a short distance of the New Year. It's a journey, both near and far, where everyone will find a safe haven. * With a sound that craftily mixes the smooth easy listening of the 1950s, sophisticated continental pop of the '60s, and the bands of the '90s like the Cardigans and Stereolab (who borrowed liberally from them as well), the French group Le SuperHomard displayed a warm, nostalgic glow on their 2016 debut EP, MapleKey. It landed them a deal with legendary indie pop label Elefant, which released their debut album, Meadow Lane Park, in 2019. With a solo Christophe Vaillant continuing to use the moniker, a collaboration with resonant-voiced indie pop singer Maxwell Farrington followed in 2021. That partnership continued, with releases including 2024's somewhat lusher Please, Wait..., which was recorded with classical musicians. Le SuperHomard is guided by the pop vision of multi-instrumentalist/producer Christophe Vaillant, who in the early 2000s was in the power pop group the Strawberry Smell and later in the decade played in Pony Taylor. In 2015, he started work on Le SuperHomard as a solo venture but soon teamed with his drumming brother, Olivier, and vocalist Pandora Burgess for the project's first record, 2016's MapleKey EP, which was released by labels in Japan, the U.K., and the U.S. Vaillant utilized a combination of guitars and drum machines, vintage synths, and loping bass lines to craft music that showed the influence of classic songwriters like Burt Bacharach, the sonic skills of Brian Wilson, and the post-modern approach of craftspeople like Broadcast and the High Llamas. Vaillant assembled a live band and played shows starting in 2016. After signing with Spanish label Elefant, Vaillant began work on a full-length album with the help of vocalist Julie Big, his brother Oliver, multi-instrumentalist Benoit Pithon and guitarist R mi Saboul. Recording after hours at the record shop where he worked, Vaillant and co-producer Pithon crafted a sound that was lusher and more intricately arranged than MapleKey, while still following the same musical signposts. After first releasing the SpringTime EP in November 2018, the group's first full-length, Meadow Lane Park, was issued in early 2019. Vaillant met Australian expat Maxwell Farrington at that year's MaMA Festival in Paris when he was taken by Farrington's a cappella version of a Burt Bacharach song for sound check. The two quickly bonded over a shared enthusiasm for artists including Sean O'Hagan, Scott Walker, and Lee Hazlewood, and Farrington went on to write lyrics for Vaillant, while Vaillant arranged a song for Farrington. The two exchanged demos, which led to a collaborative album. Credited to Maxwell Farrington & Le SuperHomard, Once arrived on Talitres in April 2021. The collaboration continued on the EP I Had It All a year later, and in February 2024, Talitres released their second full-length, Please, Wait... It was recorded at French venue L'Autre Canal with opera and conservatory musicians. * Tin Pan Alley- and classic pop-inflected melodies are just one of the idiosyncrasies of Maxwell Farrington's arty, theatrical alternative songs. His 2018 album Demandez l'Impossible consisted of whimsical, video game-like electronic instrumentals, while his 2021 collaboration with Le SuperHomard relied on his resonant baritone voice on a set that drew on common influences such as Sean O'Hagan and Scott Walker. That partnership continued with releases including 2024's somewhat lusher Please, Wait..., which was recorded with classical musicians. Australian musician Maxwell Farrington left his homeland for Europe in 2013 and was based in Toulouse, France, when he released the playful, trumpet-embellished synth song "Homme Terreste" in 2016. After sharing a few more tracks -- both with and without vocals -- Farrington released an album of chiptune-esque instrumental keyboard compositions called Demandez l'Impossible in March 2018. A few months later, his song "Break My Heart" was included on the compilation L'Ambassade l'Aime Pop, Vol. 1. In 2019, Farrington met Christophe Vaillant, aka Le SuperHomard, at Paris' MaMA Festival after Vaillant heard him sing an a cappella version of a Burt Bacharach song for sound check. The two quickly bonded over a shared enthusiasm for artists including Sean O'Hagan, Scott Walker, and Lee Hazlewood, and Farrington went on to write lyrics for Vaillant, while Vaillant arranged a song for Farrington. Exchanged demos led to a collaborative album. Before its release, Farrington was featured on a track on Chapi Chapo et les jouets lectroniques' album Collector. The Farrington and Le SuperHomard full-length Once arrived on Talitres in April 2021. Their collaboration continued on the EP I Had It All a year later, and in February 2024, Talitres released their second full-length, Please, Wait.... It was recorded at French venue L'Autre Canal with opera and conservatory musicians. * Biography: "I listened to a song that Maxwell sent me and said to myself, 'this guy is incredible, I must work with him'," says Christophe Vaillant who performs as Le SuperHomard. His latest record, a collaboration with Australian singer Maxwell Farrington, was born from an instantaneous connection the pair felt when they met during a joint concert at La Boule Noire, on the MaMA Festival in 2019. During Farrington's sound check, he sang an a capella version of a song by Burt Bacharach. This led to an engaging conversation between the two musicians, who discussed their common passion for Sean O'Hagan, Lee Hazlewood and Scott Walker. "Well we can all agree that there's no seduction more powerful than common taste in music," says Farrington. "Soon after that gig Christophe asked me to write lyrics for him, which I did obligingly. From there I asked him to arrange one of my songs." It was clear the two had a lot in common in terms of taste but musically they soon sparked too, sending things back and forth until the sketching of an album emerged. "I sent off a few demos to Christophe down in the south of France and he just picked out whatever songs he felt were good," says Farrington. "Christophe has a saying: There are no bad songs, only bad arrangements; and we only had good songs, so it was smooth sailing." The result is a seamless collaboration from two people who share a great musical intuition. Marrying Farrington's rich baritone croon with Vaillant's deft yet stirring compositions and you're left with a record that feels like a lost classic. Whilst those influences they initially bonded over are clear on the record, it goes beyond being a simple ode to them. As Le SuperHomard - whose 2019 debut album received great critical praise ("A sparkling debut" 4* - Mojo ) - Vaillant exercised his clear pop chops via dreamy synth grooves and sparkling melodies. Here that craft is equally on display, albeit with a tonal shift towards more orchestral pop, with lush, sweeping strings lifting songs as equally as tender strums of guitar keep them propped up. Combined with Farrington's endlessly infectious vocals, the pair have landed on something that owes as much to the music's rich history as it does to contemporary sounds. -=- SHGZ -=- -=-=-==-=-=- Dream Pop is a subgenre of alternative rock and neo-psychedelia that emphasizes atmosphere and sonic texture as much as pop melody. Common characteristics include breathy vocals, dense productions, and effects such as reverb, echo, tremolo, and chorus. It often overlaps with the related genre of shoegaze, and the two genre terms have at times been used interchangeably. ---==--==---