GENEVIEVE ARTADI - Forever Forever

Straight from the beating heart of Brainfeeder comes a new release: "Forever Forever", the third studio album by Los Angeles-based Genevieve Artadi. A strange character, it must be said: a curious cross between a hyperpop nymphet and a skilled manipulator of nu-jazz material in all its forms, from electronics to funk to the most oblique, dreamy pop. Experience is not lacking, since Genevieve is already known as one half of the duo Knower, formed together with Louis Cole, with whom she also shares a record label. But without her colleague's neurotic virtuosic fireworks making noise, here the author delivers twelve carefully chiseled tracks balanced between intricate rhythmic complexity and lunar synthetic arrangements, showing, at least at first glance, a more traditionally feminine sensibility. But these are definitions that soon crumble, proof of an approach that is in truth modern and idiosyncratic, one that looks to the modulations of contemporary jazz while also keeping an ear open to the adventures of 100 gecs, Madgalena Bay or DOMi & JD Beck. With these premises, listening to "Forever Forever" keeps shifting continuously between lopsided harmonies, limping rhythms and frayed melodic temptations. Keeping up with it is another matter entirely.

The progressive drift of "Visionary" unfolds over synthetic drones with an impalpable fluidity, the title track uses a pearly piano solo to dismantle the song form into a sickly sing-song, "I Know" floats elusively above the listener's ears without offering any foothold: take it or leave it, in short, because Genevieve lives in her own world and always seems intent on curiously observing something placed behind our backs. Across its five-minute span, for instance, "Message To Self" spells out exactly what its title suggests: an incidental melodic line with a hazy, pensive gait, as if she were truly thinking out loud without considering the microphone still running in the studio.

There's no shortage of more interesting moments, though, starting with the catchy, cerebral pulses of "Nice", "Black Shirts" and "Plate", alongside an evocative, deconstructed and pulverized slow bossa nova like "To Tell How I Adore You". Absolutely delightful is "From Avalanche", a sort of ride that's half Radiohead, half Talking Heads, with flashes of color and big-band-style guitar solos. Also gorgeous is "Change Stays", a dreamy, meditative art-pop ballad under the moonlight, on which the author pines away like a Cheshire cat caught in a delicate play of ambient veils. For the closing of "Watch For The View", the usual impalpable house melodicism is treated like a piece of rustic folk.

"Forever Forever" retains an unfathomably ethereal, homogeneous feel, in which a large part of the work drowns without straining the listener's ears. It's a carefully crafted, intricate sonic flow, but often produced with too much caution, resulting in a lucid, sun-drenched atmosphere that strips weight away from the songwriting. On the other hand, Genevieve's performances live like faint butterfly wingbeats, at times reminiscent of Gretchen Parlato's work, a minimal and elusive human presence, one that therefore fails to offer the kind of immediately digestible little treats that label mates Hiatus Kaiyote, say, might provide.

But these are also the very points of fascination in a work like "Forever Forever"; with a little patience and repeated listens, these somewhat thorny, elusive compositions reveal a meticulous, never approximate care. The style of an artist who works outside the usual conventions and has no interest in mass audiences, yet possesses a talent entirely her own.

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15/05/2023