PREMIERE : Soft Fit – Emergency Loop [Ville Nouvelle]

ville nouvelle - soft fit

Parisian cassette label Ville Nouvelle are back with a forthcoming tape! This time for VNC005 ‘Dream Plants’ we have 5 tracks by Soft Fit and then another 4 by Aquatic Language, which is a collaborative project between Soft Fit and Precipitation, both of whom are Vancouver-based.

You might know Ville Nouvelle by its only 12” release – a beautiful, beautiful work by fellow Parisian Too Smooth Christ which came out earlier this year. If you’re a regular Bolting Bits reader, you might even remember the label from our VNC004 premiere a few months back, which featured young Australians Yardley and River Yarra. Or, you might simply draw familiarity in the release’s cover art, because despite featuring artworks from different graphic designers for each of its releases, Ville Nouvelle has curated for itself a strong, recognisable label image… and an even more distinct sound. This is a sound which is hazy and soothing; it has a penchant for the organic, the earthy, and with past EP names like ‘Midsummer Melodies’ and ‘LD Fantasy Tracks’, you’d only imagine that there’d be an ethereal flair to it too.

VNC005 ‘Dream Plants’ certainly takes on this sound, but then goes to extend way beyond it with tracks like ‘Lifelike’, a flute duet study in compound-duple time, and ‘Départ’, an 8-and-a-half-minute cinematic soundtrack. A personal favourite is ‘Water Garden’, which features traditional East Asian instrumentation against a trickling stream of water-drop percussion.

[soundcloud url=”https://soundcloud.com/boltingbits/soft-fit-emergency-loop” /]

Our premiere today is Soft Fit’s A3 ‘Emergency Loop’. The track features creamily pressed-in block chords on woodwind synths, drum machine oscillations, and jazzy explorations on a saxophone synth. At times the bass provides a mellow counter-melody to the sax, other times it bounces us along with a punchy riff, paired perfectly with the shimmery percussive highs. ‘Emergency Loop’ is warm, it’s sincere, and it’s gently elevating. Like the other tracks of the EP, it is a great story-teller – imaginative and picturesque, immersing you in a separate, well-considered scene within the ‘Dream Plants’ narrative.

VNC005 ‘Dream Plants’ is out December 1st !

[embedyt] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svCsiHSJTGY[/embedyt]

Maria