- Exploring '90s sounds from ambient jungle to trip-hop, RAMZi's latest album is heavy on the kick drums with the whimsy still intact.
- Phoebé Guillemot's catalogue as RAMZi has a sprawling feel. She takes her time exploring strange alien landscapes and all the sounds and creatures she can conjure up with her laptop. Some of it works on the dance floor, but that's never felt like the purpose. Over time, however, she's moved from from terra nova imaginary worlds to something more self-contained, more focused on worldly instruments and earthly delights—like the sitars and woodwinds of this year's hyphea LP on Music From Memory—than squawking birds and indecipherable voices. That newfound focus comes into even sharper relief on feu follets, which revives the the Canadian artist's own FATi Records label. Though her accompanying notes mention "fields, forests, chaparall and scrublands," instead of an exposition into unknown realms, the album feels like more like a survey of contemporary clubland—a place that we'd all be happy for Guillemot to spend more time in.
feu follets, which translates to "fire sprites," starts off innocently enough with "risin," a track built around synthetic double bass and a synth guitar figure. It's a buoyant and folky jam that leans on the psychedelia of older releases. But that quickly makes way to "coucou mon ami," a collaboration with DJ Python. Here we've walked into some subterranean nightclub ruled by Python's distinct shuddering, broken beats, plus some eerie woodwinds that probably came from Guillemot's toolbox.
This kick-drum-forward approach continues for the rest of the album. Kicks hold down the otherwise flighty '90s breakbeat experiment "all ball," whose off-kilter keys sound like early Biosphere getting loose a jazz bar. The rolling drum & bass of "zombini" features captivating drum fills and excited synths that flutter across the stereo spectrum. Indeed, if Guillemot's previous work felt placeless and timeless, then feu follets is clearly influenced by the '90s. The acid-jazz-dub of "psyrock," featuring underrated Montreal jack-of-all-trades Anabasine, could have wafted from a nag champa-scented side lounge of a fusion restaurant with bead curtains and a Buddha statue. And "tone beast," with fellow former Vancouverite CZ Wang of Mood Hut fame, closes the album with some cute-but-unsettling childlike voices and a wonderfully woozy walking bassline. It's like walking out of a nightclub you've been in far too long, and into a, muggy, overheated Sunday afternoon.
My favourite is the title track, whose snappy UK garage swing jolts the album into high gear after the druggier swing of the Python collaboration. The drums hit hard and fast, while Guillemot's usual assortment of smudged chords and strange critter sounds grow around the beat like a canopy of trees. It's not some radical reinvention—more like a reinforcement, a burst of confidence, a newly sturdy foundation. Maybe instead of exploring new places, RAMZi has actually been building one place layer by layer over time, with her records. In that case, feu follet is the sound of a megalopolis in progress, both urban and urbane, with a hint of the old whimsy still lurking underneath.
Tracklist01. risin
02. coucou mon ami feat. DJ Python
03. feu follets
04. all ball
05. tien-bon
06. zombini
07. psyrock feat. Anabasine
08. tone beast feat. CZ Wang