The Imaginary Museum is the debut album by Dublin’s Autre Monde. Released through Strange Brew Records (Junior Brother, Squarehead, Daithi), the long-player follows a run of singles and an EP stretching back to 2017. Put together over several sessions with Girl Band's Daniel Fox as producer, the album's 9 songs mark a definitive statement from a band who have evolved their earlier interpretations of post-punk/art-pop to arrive at a richer, more expressive moment, often taking folk-ish melodies and structures as a launchpad. 

Touchpoints include Brian Eno, Peter Gabriel, Roxy Music, Harmonia, Fairport Convention circa ‘Liege & Leaf’, Grace Jones, the Human League, Alex Cameron - and most especially the orgainsing principle to make a record “by a band who were playing esoteric post-punk in 1979 but who are now transplanted to 1986 where a hit is demanded”. It is a darkly tuneful record, dotted with moments of outright pop - see recent single On the Record with its exuberant sax break, for example (“a bright delight of a song” - Nialler 9), or the pulsating, mutating Fever in May. Elsewhere, the record stretches out confidently: luxuriating in baths of vintage synthesizers on The Operator, descending into something wild and uncertain in the final minutes of Brain Upon Your Pillow, mixing the pastoral...  more

credits

releases February 28, 2020 

All music written and performed by P Cooney, P Hanna, E O’Brien and M Chester 

All lyrics written by P Cooney, except ‘Saturday’ by P Hanna 

Recorded and mixed by Daniel Fox at Sonic Recording Studios, Dublin. 

Saxophone on ‘On the Record’ played by Félim Gormley. 

Additional vocals on ‘On the Record’ sung by Naoise Roo.