Clement Panchout - Underwater

 

Released: June 19

As a composer for video games in particular, French artist Clement Panchout certainly knows how to create a concise and focus theme for his releases and Underwater makes for a perfect example of this skill. The compositions contained within this album perfectly encapsulate the atmopshere of the ocean in all of its majesty and its mystery. The theme set forth is rather expansive as well. There are tracks that seem to emphasize differing aspects of the ocean, from the deep and foreboding darkness of being deep under to the light cheeriness of the surface with the sun reflecting from its surface. 

There are two tracks that seem to stand out in terms of the theme with "Movement of the Ocean (Storm)" and "Movement of the Ocean (Calm)" being these stellar solo piano pieces that reflect the moments in which we come to the surface to see the weather shifting and changing, before we dive back into the depths to explore what lies below. For many of the rest of the tracks, Panchout creates piano-inflected synthetic soundscapes that bubble and churn such as in "Lost Submarine" and "Underwater II." But he also surprised me with "Chant of the Deep," a track that opens up with quiet pads and synthtic sounds but slowly grows into a hypnotic rhythm alongside the pads that possesses a trance-like quality to it. The whole album is a fantastic adventure that I highly recommend taking.