Lyon, France-based musician Baptiste Martin is emphatically NOT not-fun: the dude makes new music out of old tapes of flute and panpipe under the nom-de-electroacoustic composition Les Halles (which is “The Halls” in English, for you brutes who don’t know French; the name may or may not be borrowed from Paris’ long since demolished fresh fish market of the same name). AND: he even has a new album called Zephyr blowing gently into the world on May 4 via Not Not Fun.
Zephyr follows a yearlong “sabbatical” from recording for Martin, and it’s also the first record he’s made entirely with a computer. His last release, 2016’s, Transient, was pretty well-liked here in TMT-land, and we published an interview with Martin a few months after its release.
Martin describes the new music on Zephyr evoking “landscapes with almost no human traces.” The album’s nine tracks are titled with the words “horizon,” “distance,” and “mirage,” which all bear the distinction not only of being very idiomatically appropriate, new age-y words; but also of being words that are the same in both English and French. (You’re welcome, you uni-lingual boobs!)
To start the non-non-fun as soon as possible, you may pre-order Zephyr here. But be forwarned: in addition to digital, it’s also coming out on a crazy-limited vinyl edition of 100 (and the vinyl comes with a bonus cassette of reinterpreted tracks), so don’t sleep. Check out “First distance,” an advance track from Zephyr, down below while you wait.
Zephyr tracklisting:
01. First Horizon
02. Second Horizon
03. First Distance
04. First Mirage
05. Second Distance
06. Third Horizon
07. Final Horizon
08. Final Distance
09. Final Mirage
More about: Les Halles
