AUTRE MONDE - The Imaginary Museum
THE IMAGINARY MUSEUM is the new album from Autre Monde, out on 28 February. Pre-order on 12” Turmeric
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