Louis PhiliPPe & the NiGht Mail
THUNDERCLOUDS
Sometimes the backstory of a record is so peculiar that you find yourself double- and triple-checking it to make sure you’re not passing on some (admittedly diverting) hoax. But no. This one’s for real and so esoteric that surely nobody would have bothered to invent it.
Louis Philippe, one-time house writer and producer for 1980s cult indie label él Records, renowned for its refined retro chamber-pop, is also Philippe Auclair, the football journalist of choice for aesthetes.
This is a fact that makes perfect
sense. Auclair brings the same mannered, baroque and arch approach to sport and to music. And if such is your taste, then he is a true artiste with both.
Thunderclouds is a marvel of its form, melding Auclair’s native Francophone sensibilities with those of his acquired home in England. You may not have wondered whether there is a sweet spot somewhere between Anthony Newley and Jacques Brel – but, like the neophyte David Bowie before him, Auclair evidently has. And unlike Bowie, he has devoted some decades to the successful location of it.
This, then, is a set of songs crafted with an adroit hand and a discerning ear. But don’t take this to mean a sterile exercise in elegance. On the contrary, the string arrangements and muted horns, Auclair’s felttextured croon, the debonair lyrics, are harnessed in the service of feeling. Also, given the multifarious odes to skylarks, eagles, ravens and so on, it is well overdue that somebody with suitable gifts should pen a celebration in song of the mighty owl.