It is hard to believe that five years have passed since French composer Sylvain Chauveau's last "proper" album. Of course, there have been re-issues peppering the years since Down To The Bone, as well as more than a few collaborations and soundtrack appearances, but Sylvain has purposefully waited to allow his ideas to come to fruition. The Depeche Mode songs he had explored on Down To The Bone had given him ideas he felt he needed to explore, and Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated) is his attempt at an album of "songs." In many ways, this album is constructed the way albums used to be -- it is compact and filled with vocal hooks and melodies, yet Sylvain has deconstructed the musical forms he grew up listening to and reduced them to their base level. Vocal snippets fall through the stereo field and his signature piano motifs splutter and cough through processed digital hiccups. As Carsten Nicolai and Ryuichi Sakamoto deconstructed classical music, Sylvain attempts here to study and dissolve the roots of popular music. Each piece feels like it could have started as a 3-minute pop sing-along before the accompaniments were stripped away and the component parts reduced to merely a backbone. Singular Forms (Sometimes Repeated) is a daring and challenging listening experience. The widescreen theatrics of Sylvain's previous work have all but disappeared, leaving an album that is stark and incredibly beautiful. It is an album rooted in a love of art and music, both minimal and mainstream and celebrates Sylvain's influences. One listen might only reveal surface details, but listen again and you will find much, much more.
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