Album Review: Benoit Pioulard - Sonnet

Aight so first, I guess an album made up entirely of loops and samples and shit usually wouldn’t be describe in earnest as being “hot fire.” That is usually something reserved for real hood shit. But I gotta say, after multiple spins, this new Benoit Pioulard LP is, in deed, hot fire.

Admittedly I half slept on dude’s last album, 2013 Hymnal, mostly because it was so uneven: like, have of it was weird, psychedelic pop music (which was dope), and then the other half was ambient droning (which is also dope in most context) but like an album of half and half—I was not feeling it. I did like that joint “Hawkeye” though. That was good shit.

Anyway, the gawd’s latest, Sonnet, is all straight up ambient bliss.

Recording under the moniker Benoit Pioulard, artist Thomas Meluch has tapped into that very evocative level of ambient and experimental music—reserved for the likes of Kyle Bobby Dunn and Andrew Hargreaves’ Tape Loop Orchestra. In fact, I get some TLO vibes from Sonnet’s third track, “Of Everything That Rhymes.”

Like all excellent music of this kind, Meluch taps into the ability to create a feeling of calm and reassurance—feelings that arrive early on in the cascading waves of “An Image Apart From Our Own,” then later in the album’s first “single,” the warped sounding “So Etched in Memory.”

Sonnet is an impressive album in both how it was created—I have such a rudimentary knowledge of music production that I have no clue how some of this is being done—but also in its sense of restraint. Meluch never lets any of these compositions get out of hand, and overall, there’s a very reserved, introspective atmosphere throughout the record.

It’s also a record that kind of straddles the balance of something that can be hopeful and triumphant; something that can be somber and heartbreaking; and something that can be ominous and stark. In that sense, it’s similar to The Disintegration Loops, though, of course, not nearly as intimidating, or demanding of a listen.

As undemanding as Sonnet ends up being, it’s certainly not intended to be background music. Meluch has created a series of thought provoking and imaginative pieces, varying in depth and feeling, but never in quality. It is highly recommended emotional listening.

Sonnet is available on Monday, March 30th, via Kranky.