Thomas Mery Archive

Puzzle Muteson, Rach Three & Thomas Mery’s Paris home gig

PUZZLE MUTESON, RACH THREE & THOMAS MERY will be visiting us for a home gig in Paris, on Saturday, May 21, at 7:30pm. We are very excited and honored to welcome those 3 outstanding singers-songwriters, all of whom are releasing records this Spring which you should definitely look out for. Please send us an e-mail to be added to the guest list if you would like to join: salon(AT)goodmornincaptn.com

Puzzle Muteson, Rach Three, Thomas Mery passent au salon le 21 mai 2011

PUZZLE MUTESON (UK, Bedroom Community)

Newly signed to Iceland’s Bedroom Community, Puzzle Muteson is an enigmatic songwriter from the Isle of Wight, rendering his music in a tremulous tenor over a finely spun web of fingerpicked guitar. After obsessively listening to his raw tapes, Valgeir Sigurðsson and Nico Muhly nurtured the songs that now inhabit his debut recording, titled En Garde. The album will be released on June 6 in Europe, and June 7 worldwide.

RACH THREE (FR)

Rach Three is a folk/ambient project from Paris with a raw and delicate rib. Depending on the time and weather, Rach Three’s guitar and voice intertwine with an occasional clarinet, trumpet, singing saw, drums and piano. His first record “3 songs for Claire +2” has just been released last month.

THOMAS MERY (FR, Own Records)

On “Les couleurs, les ombres“, his second solo album out May 31st on Own records, Thomas Mery keeps exploring the paths of his latest EP, again with a little help from his former Purr mates (Jérôme Lorichon, now in The Berg Sans Nipple, and Stéphane Bouvier, now touring with Yann Tiersen and Nestor Is Bianca). Now mainly singing in his native French, Thomas deconstructs the codes of folk music and chanson, filters everyday-life impulses through the more volatile matter of dreams, creating songs that allow the daring listener to penetrate an intimate and singular world, where Nick Drake and Dominique A meet Tarkovski and Antonioni.

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2010 – Top 18

GoodMorninCaptn - Top 2010 Part 2 - feat. Heartland, Innundir Skinni, Cardiac Malformation, Des Larmes..., Rivers, Creatures..., Teen Dream, Learning, My Father...AFTER THE TOP #30 TO #19 RECORDS, LET’S KEEP ASCENDING THE STAIRS OF 2010 WITH THE SECOND PART OF OUR FAVORITE RECORDS, MOSTLY POP AND FOLK, WITH SPARSE JAZZY OR NOISY TOUCHES.

SWANS - My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky (artwork: Beatrice Pediconi)Perfume Genius - LearningBeach House - Teen Dream (Sub Pop/Bella Union, Jan. 2010)
18) SWANS – “My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky” (Young God Records)

12 years after “Swans Are Dead”, Michael Gira’s noble bird turns into a Phoenix and resuscitates with a strikingly powerful album.
Eden Prison by Swans

> Listen to My Father Will Guide Me Up A Rope To The Sky on Spotify.

17) PERFUME GENIUS – “Learning” (Matador / Turnstile)

The sensitive Seattle singer-songwriter delivers a sincere and troubling debut, directly from his bedroom to yours.

Listen to title track “Learning“:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.


Perfume Genius – “Look Out, Look Out” directed by Patrick Sher
(Alternative link to watch the video on YouTube)

> Listen to Learning on Deezer or Spotify.

16) BEACH HOUSE – “Teen Dream” (Sub Pop / Bella Union)

Victoria Legrand and Alex Scally have perfected their suave melodies on their 3rd album, enchanting fans and critics alike.

Listen to “Norway“, from “Teen Dream“:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

> Listen to Teen Dream on Deezer or Spotify.

Clogs - The Creatures in the Garden of Lady WaltonWildbirds & Peacedrums - RiversThomas Mery - Des larmes mélangées de poussière
15) CLOGS – “The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton” (Brassland)

For the first time, the instrumental quartet has invited some distinguished friends over to sing along: Sufjan Stevens, Matt Berninger (from The National, with whom Clogs share one of their founders and masterminds, Bryce Dessner), and most notably Shara Worden (aka My Brightest Diamond) all take turns and grace the lush and brilliant compositions with their unique vocal presence. Not the least of its qualities, Clogs‘ fifth album is nicely packaged in a beautiful hommage to Douanier Rousseau by Hvass&Hannibal, also known for designing record covers and directing a video for Efterklang.

Listen to “On The Edge“, featuring Shara Worden, from “The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton“:

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> Listen to The Creatures in the Garden of Lady Walton on Deezer.

14) WILDBIRDS & PEACEDRUMS – “Rivers” (Leaf Label)

Wildbirds & Peacedrums‘ third album is the reunion of 2 EPs, Iris and Retina, where the Swedish duo mixes its warm, soulful voice and tribal rythms with the Icelandic avant-garde. Rivers indeed was recorded by Ben Frost and mixed by Valgeir Sigurðsson, with an Icelandic chamber choir arranged by Hildur Guðnadóttir.


Wildbirds & Peacedrums – “Bleed Like There Was No Other Flood” directed by Patrik Instedt

13) THOMAS MERY – “Des larmes mélangées de poussière” (Ohayo Records /BS Records)

Thomas is back with a beautiful EP, the poetry of which we love to get immersed and lost into. A nice preamble to his new full-length album to be released in 2011.

Ça by Thomas Mery

> Listen to (and/or buy) the EP on Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Deezer, or Spotify.

> Read our review and listen to 2 songs from Thomas Mery’s live session au salon.

Thus:Owls - Cardiac MalformationsÓlöf Arnalds - Innundir SkinniOwen Palett - Heartland
12) THUS:OWLS – “Cardiac Malformations” (Hoob Records / Almost Musique)
A few more Swedes (and a Canadian) in our top, with Thus:Owls, the dark cabaret pop of which has rocked us the whole year.

Listen to “Climbing The Fjelds Of Norway” from “Cardiac Maformations“:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

> Listen to Cardiac Malformations on Deezer or Spotify.

> Read our Review of Cardiac Malformations.

11) ÓLÖF ARNALDS – “Innundir Skinni” (One Little Indian)

Björk’s protégée and Múm collaborator Ólöf Arnalds releases a lovely new album produced by Kjartan Sveinsson (Sigur Rós), at times heavily orchestrated with uplifting choirs, and at times stripped down to only Ólöf’s high-pitched voice and simple strings.


Ólöf Arnalds – “Surrender” directed by Arni & Kinski

> Listen to Innundir Skinni on Deezer or Spotify.

10) OWEN PALLETT – “Heartland” (Domino)

Owen drops his Final Fantasy stage name but keeps delivering what he does best: light and grandiloquent pop songs for viola and violin loops.

Owen Pallett

> Listen to Heartland directly in the embedded player above, or on Spotify or Deezer.

Read and listen to the first part of our favorite records (top #30 to top #19), and finally (attention, drum roll…) discover our favorite 9 records of 2010

GoodMorninCaptn parlour gig: Thomas Mery passe au salon

CLOSING THE WINTER ON A HIGH NOTE, GOODMORNINCAPTN HOSTED A GIG “AU SALON” LAST SUNDAY. FOR OUR FIRST EVER LIVING-ROOM SESSION, WE HAD THE GREAT PLEASURE AND HONOR TO INVITE THOMAS MERY IN AN OLD MONTMARTRE BOUTIQUE TURNED INTO AN APARTMENT, AND – ON THIS SPECIAL OCCASION – TURNED INTO AN INTIMATE CONCERT VENUE. THIS IS NO SECRET THAT WE HAVE BEEN STRONG SUPPORTERS OF THOMAS FOR YEARS, FROM BOTH HIS ALBUMS WITH PURR TO HIS LATEST SOLO MUSICAL WANDERINGS (SEE OUR 2005 INTERVIEW HERE), AND MR MERY REWARDED US WITH A DELIGHTFUL OVERVIEW OF HIS SOLO WORK FROM A SHIP, LIKE A GHOST, LIKE A CELL TO HIS LATEST EP DES LARMES MÉLANGÉES DE POUSSIÈRE, AS WELL AS COVERS AND A COUPLE OF UNRELEASED SONGS.

ThomasMeryPasseAuSalon

Paris, Sunday March 14 – A quiet cul-de-sac on the south side of Montmartre staged the first GoodMorninCaptn parlour session, simply entitled « Au Salon ». Behind the blurred window glass of a reconverted boutique, furniture was moved and a buffet table set. The happy few guests were welcomed into the cozy apartment with their contributions of cakes and drinks, and soon ushered onto sofas and cushions for the first set.

Mr Mery and his faithful Guild guitar quietly seated on a white wooden chair, set against a bare background of beige and off-white. But within a few guitar chords, his palette filled the room, and with his first words, the audience was mesmerized.

Starting with songs from his 2006 solo debut, A Ship, Like A Ghost, Like A Cell, he let the sense of intimacy underlying his work fully bloom into the ears of the selected group. Yet he interpreted tracks such as “Real Shift” or “The Red of The Shoes” with unsettling propriety, uncomfortably twisting his legs and modestly bending over his guitar.

Newer tracks from his EP Des Larmes Mélangées De Poussière included “Aux Fenêtres Immenses”, in which Thomas allows himself more freedom than ever, trying out more melodious lines, shifting languages and directions through more than 11 epic, magnificent minutes.

Thomas Mery Passe Au Salon – “Aux Fenêtres Immenses”

ThomasMery-DesLarmesMelangeesDePoussiere

The three tracks on the EP, fully illustrate his progress in the past few years. Technically to begin with. Thomas is turning to French again on two of them and handles his mother tongue with impressionist skills that are quite unique on the scene. Evocative and mysterious, literate yet unpretentious, his lyrics still vehicle the same melancholy, the same sadness. Nevertheless, the almost stifling emergency that sometimes characterized his past work is slowly giving way to maturity. Where you could hear “live and ache” you may now understand “live and learn”. His guitar playing seems to have followed quite the same direction. Still deeply rooted into folk, and yet of unquestionable modernity. Patiently destructured and reconstructed, his guitar lines fade and morph unpredictably and seamlessly. Instrumental storytelling. Patterns overlay like veils, and echo each other like the surfaces of some imaginary landscape. Shades of nude with sparks of ice-blue fading into the deep greens of the undergrowth contrasted with the red of blood.

Two yet untitled tracks following the same path should be released later this year. Fully written in French, they convey the same cinematic elegance, the same know-how in song-writing. The same but different: the richness of nuances, the colors, the sceneries. Different. Need we say we are looking forward to the next full length?

Thomas Mery Passe Au Salon – De l’amour, de la colère

While many singers feel the need to go lower down the scale as they advance in their career, Thomas is finding more comfort for his voice in pushing his guitar capo to the higher frets.  His brilliant interpretation of Costello’s “Shipbuilding” best demonstrated his mastery of the heights. His vocals fluently curved around the living room and entangled with his traditional folk arrangements. Other covers included his disarming rendering of Paulinho Da Viola’s, fetured on Des Larmes Mélangées De Poussières, and his now classic “Running Up That Hill”, which retains all the tension and high energy of Miss Kate Bush’s original, while remarkably stripping it down to minimalism.

As the concert ended, records were frantically purchased, and wine, beer, and vegan canapés (and cigarettes) were cheerfully shared. The opportunity for initiates and newcomers alike to approach his work from another angle, and discover that the shy, talented – and often sad – man on stage is also a kind and funny man on the sofa. Quite expectedly, Miao Miao the house cat stole Mr Mery’s thunder for the rest of the evening. The story does not say if she was hired to play for the next parlour gig, and if she would be able to hypnotize her audience for more than an hour like Thomas did, so… stay tuned.

Read more about Thomas Mery.

Purchase Des Larmes Mélangées De Poussière here.

Read our 2005 interview here.

Thomas Mery Invites Purr Mates On 2010 EP

Thomas MeryLater this month, Parisian folk singer-songwriter Thomas Mery will head to Brittany in order to record all-new material with engineer Miguel Constantino (Papier Tigre, Centenaire, La Terre Tremble !!!).

Thomas will welcome his former Purr fellows Stéphane Bouvier and Jérôme Lorichon (Berg Sans Nipple) to play bass, clarinet, drums, and trumpet on new songs such as “Ca” and “Aux Immenses Fenêtres”, which Thomas recently started playing live in Lille and Paris. The 4 to 5 tracks, mostly sung in French, will be released in early 2010 as a vinyl and digital EP.

You may already listen to some of those new songs in Dr Adams’ session streamable here for one month. Thomas recorded this French radio show prior to a home gig set up on November 1st by Dr Adams. Thanks to the latter’s kind invite, we were lucky enough to attend this lovely intimate show, where one could get hypnotized by the smell of Tartiflettes and the swirling sparkles of a disco ball while Thomas sang his new songs along with older ones from 2006’s A Ship, Like A Ghost, Like A Cell. A nice night with nice people in the North countryside of France.

In other Purr-related news, Berg Sans Nipple’s 3rd album should be expected soon, as the duo has finished recording.

Read Thomas Mery’s 2005 interview on GoodMorninCaptn.com.

Thomas Mery’s September Shows

Finally some news from our dear singer-songwriter Thomas Mery, as he played his first gig in a long time, last week in Lille, and has 2 more in Paris this month.

Catch him this Sunday for a short set among many acoustic performances at Boutiques Sonores and Monster K7’s party, or on Wednesday, September 30 with Blackthread and Thos Henley at la Cantine de Belleville. A nice opportunity to hear some of Thomas’ new songs, as a foretaste of his upcoming album, expected for -hopefully- 2010.

Biggest BS Acoustic International Party, L'International, Sept. 20

Blackthread - Thomas Mery - Thos Henley

Read Thomas Mery’s interview on GoodMorninCaptn.com.

Where Thomas Mery Can Say Things At Night

AS HE IS PREPARING THE RELEASE OF HIS DEBUT SOLO ALBUM “A SHIP, LIKE A GHOST, LIKE A CELL”, PARIS-BASED SINGER-SONGWRITER FORAYS INTO FOLK MUSIC WITH A TENSION THAT WOULD MAKE NICK DRAKE SOUND LIKE A YOGI MASTER, AND A PROMISING ELECTRONIC TWIST. AT PAST MIDNIGHT, HE TELLS US MORE ABOUT IT.

Thomas Mery

Captn: Let’s start with the basics: name, age, occupation?

Thomas: Thomas Mery; already old; it depends.

Captn: Can you explain the genesis of your current project?

Thomas: After the end of Purr, I tried many things with my computer and my guitar. Very experimental, a bit hermetic. It wasn’t always relevant, and sometimes it was. I think I wanted to find out my own way of mixing electronics and guitar.
The best way to get a clearer view of the genesis is to read what’s on my site www.thomas-mery.net. I wrote a summary of what happened until the end of 2003. What comes next remains to be written.

Captn: Why a solo project, after your band experiences with Purr and Playdoh?

Thomas: Probably because I have an oversized ego, and I always think I can do everything by myself. Of course I come to realize that it’s not true, but then it’s too late, I’m already on my own, so I keep going…
Or else, because no one understands me anyway, and I absolutely wanted to express what I had deep inside, and explore every facet of my complex and tortured personality.
Or else because I was fed up with bands and compromises, and I’m grumpy, and it’s easier to rehearse on my own, and I get more money when I’m paid for a show.
Or for all those reasons at once, and for other ones I am not thinking of tonight.

Captn: From listening to your performance at the Batofar with Rivulets and Elephant Micah, then to your acoustic demo, we could notice that you are focusing more and more on songwriting, with a sparer, folkier sound. Is it a deliberate choice to restrict yourself to your voice and acoustic guitar? Is it a transition, or a new approach to your music? What about your experiences with electronics?

Thomas: People at Dora Dorovitch encouraged me to come back to songwriting, and I am thankful for that. I learned to play the guitar more decently, and I think it’s worth it. It’s not over yet, I still need to go ahead, and electronics are coming back little by little. It was a necessary step. Now I need to keep practicing the guitar, start experimenting again, play the piano, work on my breath in order to sing better, write songs that make you cry (or almost). Little by little, I think that I’m getting closer to where I wanna go to, but it takes time; more than I expected.

Captn: Can you tell us more about your songwriting process? Where? When? In which state of mind?

Thomas: Errr…
At my place in front of my computer, railing at the poor download speed of an American TV series episode (preferably HBO’s); at my grand-mother’s, in the small house at the back –the children’s one- thinking that what is past is past; on a bed in Rio, wondering how I got there; in my head around Saint-Germain-en-Laye at 5:30 am, completely enlightened by an idea that would turn out not to be that good; in my bed watching an episode of a US series (preferably HBO’s), thinking it might be time to sleep now.

Captn: 2 words on your lyrics: what do they relate to? Why don’t you try singing in French again like on Open Transport?

Thomas: Oh, I think French will come back.
As for what the songs are about… About how I see things through a plastic film; about how I’ll lose a lot of blood tonight; about how much we dream and hope and imagine; about how much I am scared; about the staircase that lights up from time to time as I look through the window; about how deep things are hidden; about places where I can say things at night when I don’t see what’s around, about steep slopes and running water, and emptiness, and nodes that allow me to go through vast expanses; about such things.

Captn: A few words on your label, Dora Dorovitch?

Thomas: I met Francis Esteves in Sevilla 4 years ago, and then Cédric and Guilhem, people with a passion for music (and more…), who have supported and encouraged me.

Captn: What are your short/mid/long-term projects?

Thomas: I am mixing my album next week, and I’m looking for gigs. I will keep writing songs and less structured tracks as well, some in French, some in English. I am also going to work on a video project that is important to me, and which involves video and computer. I will continue what we have initiated with Marie Daubert, and Benoît Toulemonde, i.e. a collective/video label project called “Shif-t”, to produce DVDs of each of us. Marie is releasing a video entitled “Flicker” to which I wrote the soundtrack, Benoît a video entitled “Thai Polaroid”, and I, a piece called “Smoke”, which I made long ago, but that we are now releasing as an object per se, with a sleeve, etc. This is still an embryonic stage, but we’ve got time.

Captn: To conclude on something other than yourself, can you please tell us what is moving you now, in music, onscreen, in art, in the world, in life?

Thomas: The last episode of Six Feet Under, but the very end… hum… well, I cried a lot…
Like many, I was really moved by Joanna Newsom’s debut album.
I’m not listening to Elis Regina so much now, but “Elis & Tom” was my last Spring’s soundtrack.
What is moving me right now is the end of the Summer, I saw yesterday the last sunset, and soon leaves will cover the ground (how romantic!).
And please, listen to Kate Bush’s “Hounds of Love” (Hello Earth).

photo by Thomas Mery

photo by Thomas Mery

Discography

Thomas Mery

Purr

Collaborations

Playdoh

  • « Playdoh », Ultraviolet 1999.
  • « Fragments », Peter I’m Flying 2003.

Loisirs

Téléfax