The Feather – live at L’Alimenation Générale, Paris – November 6, 2014 – Band Soundboard –
Belgian side-project The Feather, recorded live at L’Alimentation Générale in Paris on November 6, 2014. Listening to this show (an extended excerpt of a longer concert), you fully understand why seeing a band live may not be the best idea if the venue isn’t quite right. In this case, L’Alimentation Générale is a popular eating/drinking spot in Paris and live music appears to be an after-thought. Nothing like playing a quiet passage and having it upstaged by a bunch of loud drunks, oblivious to anyone on stage. And you only thought it happened in America? I guess not.
Further evidence the life of a working musician is not all arenas and rapt attention. And in this case, it’s the audience who lost out, because The Feather is one of those bands that draw you to them. Actually, the side-project of Thomas Medard, The Feather has been around since 2012 – Medard’s Management offered this bio on the occasion of the release of his 2020 album Rooms, the follow-up album to his debut Invisible which was released in 2014 and comes around the time of this gig.
It has been six years since the release of Invisible, Thomas Medard’s debut album under the Feather moniker, a delicately intimate solo record which saw the Dan San frontman relentlessly tour across Europe and North America. After spending some time off the road to write and experiment, Thomas is back in 2020 with his Sophomore effort Rooms.
Trading the folk arrangements of his previous works for grand pianos and synthesizers, Rooms is a complete reinvention; a daring comeback that sees Thomas leave his acoustic guitar for unfamiliar instruments on a journey through uncharted grounds where his songwriting is stripped down to its core essence.
Recorded in the span of a year between Belgium, Paris and his home studio – with contributions from producers Yann Arnaud, Yannick Lemoine and Olivier Marguerit – Rooms sees Thomas carefully cutting, manipulating and chiseling his psych-pop gems in a crafty process, nurturing the illusion of their apparent simplicity with minute precision. His fresh DIY approach to composition stems from a deliberate commitment to avoid the formulaic; a will to freely explore instruments and production tools without the burden of the theoretical.
Both organic and synthetic, Rooms intends to reunite opposites.
By confronting modern production approaches to his lo-fi sensibility, Thomas builds dream pop reveries out of pianos beds and drum machines; a timeless place where vintage synths, saxophones and exotic percussions meet.
Nicely put and a deeply personal experience to savor and enjoy (unless you’re sitting in a bar, looking to make your life complete with your tongue-tied to a Vodka Tonic and hormones doing laps around anything with two Y Chromosomes).
I am always reminded that a commitment to your craft means taking it to places you normally wouldn’t be caught dead at – you gotta do what you gotta do. It’s hoped Medard and The Feather continue this journey and bring their adventure to as many ears as they can find.
Enjoy the show. And get the albums – they don’t have crowd noise.
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