Passepartout Duo - Argot

 

Released: November 29

Upon hearing just the first few notes, I knew instantly that this was going to be a quintessential winter album. The delicately played out keys give off the most wintry vibes - cold but also bright, tight but lightly reverberated, and ultimately intimate and introspective. But the keys, despite being a solid presence throughout the album, are hardly the main focus. Each track integrates something else into the otherwise cold piano scapes, with this something else being all manner of various instruments including the classical and the modern. The second track, “Much of a Sunflower,” takes the latter in an artificial direction with the piano playing lively melodies as a slowly rising noisy synth brings a hint of chaos to the otherwise serene world. The third track, “Colorful Quartz,” takes the former and runs in another direction, being joined by traditional Japanese flutes that sing out contrasting harmonies for much of the track. 

The album maintains this back and forth theme, constantly oscillating between the classical, the natural, and the traditional in music and the synthetic, the artificial, and the unnatural that has wriggled it’s way in. It explores an interesting dualism between the historical traditions of musical expression and the modern innovations. Strange machines have become the norm in music and it is something that is rarely even noticed anymore. But the contrast between the sounds on this album force this into conscious consideration with each uneasy beep and tone. “Uncommon” is one of the more difficult tracks in this vein as we hear the piano we’ve become accustomed to become degraded and bitcrushed, playing a seemingly random and broken melody while an upright bass struggles to keep up with its weirdness. It’s just such wonderful juxtaposition that also manages to keep a wintry feel throughout the entire runtime that suits me well as I stare out the window onto the icy roads below.