(PCR065)

Initials MB – Bang Bang!
The Velvet Series Vol. 2 – PCR065
Vinyl Limited Edition (300 copies)

Text: Jean-Emmanuel Deluxe
Artwork: Albert S. Rivera

Side A
1. Fuzz du Dimanche
2. Western in Paris
3. Somebody Say
4. Growly Owl
5. Melancholia

Side B
6. J'irai à Roubaix
7. Goodbye Lazy
8. Torpeur sur le Nil
9. Hello Sisters
10. Chat Chat
11. Sophia sous LSD

Time is running out. Fragments of a faded past catch up with you without their memories even reaching you. Images of outdated Westerns reach you. Dark atmospheres, candlelit scenes where the dialogue oscillates between seriousness and virile demonstrations shrouded in humor. A language that Audiard would not have disowned. Melancholy, bombast, grandiloquence, then nostalgia again. What's happening to you? Your bearings are blurred, you admit to having already experienced these sensations but it's impossible to say where or when. Is your memory playing tricks on you? Was it a movie scene or a moment you actually experienced? That's it, without any willpower, you're hooked. Initials MB manages to make you relive scenes you've never experienced. This multi-instrumentalist has a love of sixties and seventies sounds, and above all, an insolent ease in reproducing them, which borders on the obvious.

Maxime Baderspach, his real name, long favored guitar ri s and fast tempos before (re)discovering a true passion for film soundtracks from the 60s and 70s. After two solo albums oriented towards pop from these mythical and fantasized years, he surrounded himself with spontaneous guests from the Lyon scene: Rémy Kaprielan on drums, Léa Vignoud and Roxane Boucher on flute, Sandrine Hanart and Thibauld Labey of Trumpets of Consciousness on Morricone-esque backing vocals. We won't be so bold as to explain where the pseudonym Initals MB comes from; fans of the master singer Gainsbourg will find certain accents and tics of his work in Growly Owl, a piece with sinister-looking pianos that could easily evoke a bar scene in which Jean Gabin would star. Would you rather be Spaghetti? Melancholia will take you back to the melodic flights of Morricone's genius. J'irai à Roubaix, for its part, takes us back in an obvious way to the François of this same city.

There's no sense of a desire for Initials MB to sound retro. On the contrary, the psychedelic elements present in his work, the melodic and incisive bass, the hypnotic grooves, the Hammond organs and other spinets are part of his natural musical language. A true fetish for these sounds that doesn't, however, veer into pastiche. Initals MB, more inspired by music than lyrics, composes instrumentals for imaginary films, playing with the monolithic codes and immutable constraints of the genre; here a catchy theme never returns, there a structure takes winding, non-linear paths. Your spirits return. You begin to miss the warmth of this world that is leaving you. Don't worry, carefully turn the record over to present the B-side to your diamond and "Bang, Bang!", it's off again.