The Limiñanas & Laurent Garnier – De Película
Fresh from writing two actual soundtracks (Le Bel Été and The World We Knew), cinematically styled garage-psych duo The Limiñanas figured they’d now write their own with new hook-up, veteran DJ and Gallic compatriot Laurent Garnier. Making friends at a festival back in 2017, the 60s noir of De Película has been a long time coming, Garnier getting his practice in on Anton Newcombe and Emmanuelle Seigner’s L’épée project in 2019 in between, Newcombe himself a Limiñanas collaborator of course back on their last solo LP in 2017 too.
A concept record that details the coming together and subsequently sordid road trip of teenagers Juliette and Saul, De Película makes the most of The Limiñanas’s signature sound while Garnier’s beat selections often, but not always, take more of a back seat, his experienced fingers nevertheless all over the production and writing. Take the unobtrusive electronic loop that helps ratchet up the tension in Saul’s hypnotic introduction; you might not know it’s Garnier’s work, but it’s the bedrock on which the Doctor Who kosmiche and motorik repeats of the rest of the groove are built.
Only on new Spanish-language single “Que Calor!”, which features Edi Pistolas on gruff vocal, do Garnier’s beats really come full-frontal, bringing the heat the track title demands during massive choruses. Elsewhere we’re treated to pure atmosphere, the instrumental “Je Rentrais Par Le Bois … BB” rippling across gravitational fields with rhythmic drums and drones. One of five six-minute-plus tracks on the album, nothing is rushed and that’s a thorn in the side as, with a nip and tuck here and there, De Película could have been Palme D’Or ready, it’s twelve-track running order coming in a little on the heavy side at over an hour as it is.
The suffocating temperatures of the summer filming window play their part too, Juliette’s street-walking strut floating on by thanks to cooling oscillator propulsions and Lionel Limiñana’s husky spoken word, the narration later ensuring all doesn’t go to plan with melancholy reflections and a tear-stained ballad in the form of “Au Début C’était Le Début”. Marie Limiñana comes over all Jane Birkin in response, her whispery coquetry so evocative against a backdrop of revving engines, wheezy organ parts and grinding garage.
Though the ear is undeniably caught by the acid-baggy groove of “Promenades Obliques”, as well as by the Spaghetti Western mosey of “Saul S’est Fait Planter” (Saul Got Screwed), it’ the fast-paced “Steeplechase” that provides much of the action. A super-charged romp through the catalogues of Can and Kraftwerk, the hum of retro-futuristic industry bangs on the edge of becoming fledgling techno, high-line synth keeping things kosmiche and De Película as a whole on brand. A hell of a trailer, the nostalgic De Película whets the appetite for a movie that’ll sadly never be.
Best track: “Saul”
~De Película is released via Because Music on September 10th 2021.~