Across 11 tracks on CCLX (360), Lunice unravels a “stoner opera that blends new rap production, film scores, and modern club music.” He combines rap, hip hop and electronic to offer listeners an enticing listening experience.

The album is layered and intense; one song is instrumental bliss, the next is provocative verse. It’s theatrical. The albumís first half showcases traditional old-school rhythm and blues, while “Freeman” features poetry and ushers in the album’s midway point, “CCLX III (Intermission).” “Drop Down” has a heavy downbeat fit for a club, and features Le1f rapping. “CCLX III (Costume)” has spiritual undertones as the final notes are elevated and synthesized, almost optimistic. When The Daily asked Lunice about the meaning behind some of his songs, he responded, “How I react to my music could be completely different to the next person, which is great because [art] is so subjective.”

According to Lunice, there’s a new wave of experimentation both within the hip-hop/rap genre and between several genres. He claims, “[the genre] can’t only be straight rap.” From this mindset comes his fierce support for and involvement in impromptu jam sessions in electronic and rap music taking place across his hometown of Montreal. Explaining the legacy of collaboration and its positive contributions, he says, “There were sessions where you could bring whatever instrument you need to play music out, to come up with new sound and new music every weekend, it was the perfect setting to push our boundary and experiment. That was a thing from when Kaytranada and his crew were bubbling up, or even when we look at the history of Jazz.”
His general narrative is stylistic, four songs hold an eponymous title, and foreshadow the different “acts,” while other numbers work independently. We start off the album with “CCLX (curtain)” wherein the listener is told to “save your better change for the road” and is consistently reminded of the artist’s musical background, with an electronic downbeat which lasts throughout the whole opening feature. The tonal changes are often defined by the reprisal of sullen rap from a moment of silence during the song. It concludes. Since the release the audience feedback has been positive and perhaps more importantly, critics have also embraced his creativity.

Although the album is dark in sound and tone, many lyrics are optimistic and uplifting. The music video for CCLX’s lead single, “Tha Doorz,” mirrors the album’s format. Conceived in Montreal five years ago, the song features a swelling, ominous synth; Lunice actually only used one main synth melody throughout, crediting Kanye West as an inspiration for that creative decision.

The video is immaculate and abstract. Lunice’s cinematographic mode of processing becomes apparent as the song combines club, trap, and a hypnotic depth found within the slower beat, all coalescing behind the music videoís abstract choreography. When Lunice was asked about this, he rehashed his passion for film and the creative potential in combining the audio and visual, explaining, “What’s interesting is that I’ve come to realize that I really do enjoy shooting, almost as much as I like music, which is funny because for some people it just comes to making the music.” He studied editing and film in CEGEP and at Concordia, saying he’s always loved the “hard work that comes with taking creative risks,” both in performing and in audiovisual media.

In the last few seconds of the record’s final track, “CCLX IV (Black Out),” we manage to hear a snippet of Lunice’s unrestrained laugh. When asked about ending the album on this note, he stated: “The whole recordís pretty dark so I wanted to just lighten it up and even to give an impression of ‘to be continued’ into something a little more light-hearted to follow.” He’s very excited about the immediate future, citing that he already has notes and blueprints for the next album. He recognized that for his debut, though, the dark musical undertones, conceptual textures, and hints of optimism make the album a layered, complex piece. Lunice’s final laugh offers a layer of hope amongst the abstractions and swells of CCLX’s tonal darkness.

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The Montreal-based record label Archipel Musique released Navarro’s album on March 20. Anti-Matière, meaning ‘antimatter’ in English, proves to be an apt description of his nine track collection as he explores the liminal spaces between beats. “Sextant” displays traces of constancy through repetitious tapping, but then subverts the listener’s expectations with the introduction of new sounds. Midway through, the song pauses for an uncomfortably long period of time before returning to the rhythm of soft thuds.

Alexandre Navarro was born in France in 1974 and currently resides in Paris. Known as a “French master minimalist composer,” he is a self-taught guitarist, composer, and independent producer. In the early 2000s, he studied electroacoustics and concrete music at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux. He also pursued anthropology at the same time, in which he specialised in history of ideas and religions.

Today, Navarro is the founder of numerous labels: Sem label, Eko netlabel, and DISQ AN. He is also an experimental ambient guitarist as well as a sound artist, and had decided to focus more on his own music as of recently.

The album closes off with with its ninth track “La Seconde Porte,” where the sound of fireworks create an electrifying spark in the otherwise hauntingly empty piece. As the fireworks fade off into the distance, the listener feels simultaneously calm and apprehensive – lulled by the decrescendo yet waiting for something to happen.

Check out Anti-Matière at bandcamp.com/album/anti-mati-re.

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The album, translating to ‘Thousands of windows,’ consists of seven tracks that experiment with rhythm and density. Highlights include the eponymous title track and “le lac noir qui nourrit les sources souterraines” – roughly translating to ‘the black lake that nurtures underground springs.’

Des milliers de fenêtres cracks the code of ambient music through the texture and tonality of sound. Electronic beats, static noise, and ethereal sounds compliment and battle each other, creating a sensory experience that challenges how we react to and envision what we hear. The songs travel through both emotional and physical space – or, as Racine himself puts it, “memories of a lost city and sensations of a room.” Melodies are pierced through, and dissipated to make way for new ones within the same track.

Racine, also known as Rabieto, or as band member of the Dolphin Dream pyramids, has self-published eight albums in Montreal. In 2015, he performed at MUTEK – the international summer festival dedicated to electronic music and digital arts – where he worked among artist collectives such as Daïmôn.

This album is the first collaboration between Julien Racine and the signing record label Archipel Musique. He has recently performed as a DJ at one of Archipel’s events where he combined visual imagery and film projected in the background, with live music. In fact, the last track of Des milliers of fenêtres scores a short film, which has been created in light of the upcoming release.

Check out Des milliers de fenêtres at soundcloud.com/julienracine.

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