I Am A Vowel: Body Curves
Fang Bomb

Nelly Larguier is hardly what one would call prolific. Her latest I Am a Vowel release, the seven-inch vinyl EP Body Curves (packaged in a lovely full-colour sleeve, the disc is available in an edition of 200 copies) appears three years after her debut album Et Op La Bang, and its four songs amount to about half of the earlier work's twenty-five-minute running time. Originally from Paris but now rooted in London, Larguier once again presents low-key, subdued, and intimate settings that are much like electroacoustic diary records she's decided to share with us. The material is split into vocal and instrumental pieces, with Larguier's delicate, sometimes multi-tracked voice assuming a strong AGF-like character during the two brooding “Scarlette” versions when French and English words stream across electric guitar strums and field recordings of crashing waves. On the instrumental front, “Take It Easy” is an atmospheric dronescape sprinkled with footsteps, while the title track is a drifting dreamscape of high-pitched tones and muffled voices that includes a bass drum pulse persisting throughout like a heartbeat. One might characterize the EP's material as some imagined collaboration between AGF and Popol Vuh—a promising combination, even if only a small amount of it's available to be heard.

September 2011