WELL, wow. If you haven’t fallen into the world of Monsieur Minimal, that’s quite the place to go for a sun-kissed visit.
He’s outta Greece with a really pretty entrancing take on psych-pop; there’s a little bit of summer easy listening in there, powerpoppery à la say, Todd Rundgren; a whole whack of Khruangbinesque Eastern scales and midday languor; little elements of Calexico, more, all sorts blended up beautifully.
We present for you today the title track of his new album, “Easteria”, (a portmanteau, we’re informed, of ‘east’ and ‘hysteria’). Dive in and hear the flavours of the eastern Med enter into mantra with Seventies’ strings, a little old-skool ambient synth work.
He describes himself as a pop aesthete, “based in genres like blues, soul, folk and modern psychedelic music”.
There’s a couple of other singles doing the rounds: check the psych-easy groove of “Release Me”, sorta A&M and Studio 2 Seventies’ high orchestral pop cheesiness meets Aphrodite’s Child over a few cocktails at a top nightspot; and Tonight (feat. Rosey Blue), which really pulls deep on that mesa-fried Tex-Mex thang beloved of the aforementioned Calexico and Howe, and kinda takes it for a throwaway summer pop trip into boy-girl call and response.
I can’t, cynical old wordsmith that I am, quite get a full grasp of what’s at play; maybe that’s part of the undeniable beauty of it. “Easteria” is a cracker, and the album is out now on digital, CD and LP formats on Mo.Mi.Records; or stream it on all the usual digital service providers and Bandcamp.
Follow Monsieur Minimal at his website, on Facebook and on Twitter, YouTube and Instagram.
