Louis Philippe & The Night Mail - The Road To The Sea (Vinyl LP) PRE-ORDER

Louis Philippe and The Night Mail return with a new captivating record

where the songs are once again faultless. Carrying on the journey away

from the classic towards the unexpected with new synths and hand

claps adding a sense of the abrupt and, with voices calling from the

wings, a sense of play and a lack of fear.

 

Beyond the regular tales routinely retold, there's a secret, parallel

narrative of pop history. One written by the true enthusiasts and

eclectics, in which a perennial favourite like Pet Sounds didn't just

inspire endless claims of exceptionality but a long trail of harmonic

riches leading all the way to the 21st century. In this alternative

universe Philippe Auclair aka Louis Philippe, Anglo-French singer-

songwriter extraordinaire, has been an admired fixture for the past

four decades, from his beginnings as protagonist and house

producer at Mike Alway's fabled él Records label through his forays

into the Shibuya sound and collaborations with the likes of Bertrand

Burgalat, XTC's Dave Gregory, High Llamas' Sean O'Hagan and Young

Marble Giants' Stuart Moxham right up to his more recent adventures

with The Night Mail.

 

Who they, you say? A loose ensemble around bassist/sometime Acid

Jazz artist/encyclopedian of sound Andy Lewis, ex-Death in Vegas

guitarist/head of heads at Papernut Cambridge/legacy indie's favourite

live and session drummer Ian Button and guitarist/Viennese pop

ambassador to Canterbury Robert Rotifer, The Night Mail came together

a decade ago to make an album with underrated post-glam genius John

Howard. Following that one-off project they spent a couple of evenings

in London playing backing band for Robert Forster and Louis Philippe, in

the process forming an alliance with the latter that would bring about

their first collaborative album Thunderclouds in 2020. Faced with the

complexities of realising the rich sound of that record onstage, Philippe

brought on board his long-time associate, musical monster brain and

multi-instrumentalist Danny Manners.

 

So when Louis Philippe & The Night Mail met again at Rimshot Studio

in rural Kent in the spring of 2023 to tackle album number two, the same

extended line-up was assembled. Prior to these sessions, Philippe and

Lewis had got together to meticulously prepare arrangements for this

new batch of songs, already setting out a distinctly different stylistic

direction. If Thunderclouds had captured the sound of the band live in

the studio, work on The Road to the Sea began with just four days'

intense recording under Rimshot's oakwood eaves followed by

extensive extra sessions in Andy Lewis' hideaway studio somewhere

up in deepest Bassetlaw.

 

As the core duo of obsessives, Lewis/Philippe immersed themselves in

the material, adding voices, instruments and effects, interrupted only

once by Robert Rotifer visiting to throw in a few more touches of

Telecaster. Their mission was to fully realise the sonic and harmonic

potential of songs as varied as the partly portentous, partly (deceptively)

jaunty opener “The Road to Somewhere”, the catchy, XTC-flavoured

“Pictures of Anna”, the breezy-yet-apocalyptic space age groove of

“Where Did We Go Wrong” or the piano-led Francophone waltz of “Une

maison sans toit”. And by this point we've only made it halfway into side one.

 

As is Auclair/Philippe's incurable wont, there is plenty of doom lurking

underneath the music box sweetness of “Wine and Roses” or the cinematic

elegance of the almost-instrumental “Always” with fuzz and Morse code

interferences roughing up the sheen of its one word chorus and its liquid

coda gliding off into a Gainsbourgian sunset. A very different, much more

venomous kind of rayon vert is shining through in the vengeful “Watching

Your Sun Go Down”, featuring maybe the most rock chorus Louis Philippe

has ever written, in stark contrast to the gentlest of possible tributes that

is “Song for Paddy (Wings of Desire)”.At its heart, though, this is the work

of a seasoned songwriter with lots of life to look back on, be it the hazy

innocence of “notre première fois” in the wistful “Le baiser” or a grown

man's wine-addled walk home in the lonely hours of night (“A Friend”).

The maritime theme of the album title is both metaphorical (the love-torn

“All at Sea”) and sincerely literal. We find our hero reminiscing over

youthful days spent on the coast of Normandy, from the sun-soaked

memory land of “Those Days of Summer” awakening “ghosts of seasons

past”, via the undulating gentleness of a long drive “To The Sea” and all

the way back to Paris in the starkly ambient “Ville lumière”. There is a

sense of a circle closing, a sense of the glittering lights of the sparkling

capital reflected in a nocturnal Canal Saint-Martin mirroring those of a

Normandy seaside town in the English Channel.

 

It all adds up to a colourful mix of delicate textures, subtly sculpted

reverb, melodic mellotron madness, Wilsonesque layered vocal

harmonies, and the sort of long lost, very English whimsy it would

take an anglophile Frenchman to evoke. And yet, in its transparent

spaciousness dotted with charming detail, The Road To The Sea also

brings to mind the sound of Summer Dancing, Andy Lewis' acclaimed

2017 collaboration with the late, great Judy Dyble. Not without reason,

he is taking the production credit on this album that is a sort of

continuation, but by no means a repetition of its predecessor

Thunderclouds.

 

In many ways The Road to the Sea is the playfully psychedelic album

that Louis Philippe always had in him, but never got round to making.

He has now.

 

++++++++++++

 

Tracklisting

A1 The Road To Somewhere

A2 Pictures Of Anna

A3 Where Did We Go Wrong

A4 La Maison Sans Toit

A5 Those Days Of Summer

A6 All At Sea

A7 Le Baiser

B1 Wine And Roses

B2 Watching Your Sun Go Down

B3 A Friend

B4 Song For Paddy (Wings Of Desire)

B5 To The Sea

B6 Always

B7 Ville lumière