Following a chance meeting at a jazz festival in the south of France, Jessica and Guilhem fell in love and then formed the ill-fated sextet, Icsis. Following a line up shuffle that saw the band reduced to a trio, the chemistry wasn’t quite right and so, Jessica and Guilhem decided to go it alone. You have to admire the purity of their vision, for Pili Coit is a remarkable act – fusing a range of sounds in a manner rarely, if ever, heard in contemporary music. While, for sure, there are certain sonic markers (Mike Patton looms large, as does Thom Yorke), Love Everywhere is a satisfyingly unique release that rises so far above the mundanity of the mainstream as to leave it a tiny speck in the distance. Released back in October via SKiN GRAFT records, somewhat appropriately on randomly coloured vinyl, it’s an unexpected highlight of the year.
The album opens with the jazz-calypso-funk-hip-hop-lo-fi piece Rain Napalm, which sounds like Flying Lotus and Mike Patton jamming with Sebadoh. If that sounds awesome (which it is), then you need to stop reading and grab a copy of this album right now. Seriously – go! If it’s not your thing, then really, what are you doing here? Anyway, I’m going to assume that you’ve already purchased a copy and are now here waiting to see what sort of fool I make of myself as I try to weave my way through the band’s myriad sounds and textures. If so, I bid you welcome, and I’m glad to have you along for the ride. Having spent the first six minutes of the album steadily knocking back any possible expectation you had for the album, Pili Coit head into Conveyor Belt on a Radiohead-circa-Kid-A trip. With a skittering beat, somewhere between trad jazz and Aphex Twin, keeping things moving restlessly forward, Guilhem unleashes a stream-of-conscience flow of lyrics that slip between swathes of lo fi guitar. The band take yet another tack on the awkwardly titled Make My Papillae Blushing, which sounds like a combination of the long-lost Seafood and Damnation-era Opeth. A gloriously melodic piece, with grungy guitar and fantastic split vocals, it’s something refreshingly unique and incredibly engaging.
The slower Disowner is a lovely lament that skews the ethereal beauty of Jeff Buckley with awkward rhythms. With a melody that lingers long in the mind and haunting vocals, it’s a special track that sensibly sits at the heart of this deeply imaginative album. In contrast, the short I Can’t Scream, which barely exceeds two-minutes, sees the lyrics and instrumentation tumbling over one another, as if the mix tapes got jumbled during the sessions, the overall effect being more sonic tapestry than straightforward song. Things return, more or less, to normal with Taira No Tomo Momoriga (or, at least, as normal as things get around here). A stabbing, subtly electronic piece that takes jazz, art rock, and trip hop and wraps it all into a single, remarkably coherent piece. An endlessly evolving piece of music, it sees Pili Coit continue to showcase a wide-eyed love for a vast range of genres, and it’s impossible not to be captivated by their curiosity. The album concludes with a piece that allows a little more space to emerge between the various instruments. Expanding on the lo fi elements noted elsewhere, and bringing them to the fore, the result is that Endless Make Love Everywhere harks back to the wonderfully underrated sounds of Lou Barlow’s Folk Implosion project, with sketched-out guitars and loose-limbed beats bounding around the rims of the drums to keep things dynamic.
Love Everywhere is a difficult album to score, as its steadfast refusal to adhere to the norms and mores of modern music making places it far outside of mainstream tastes – and I am sure Pili Coit would have it no other way. A genre-fluid album that slips between influences, often within, let alone between songs, it’s a truly unique listening experience and just as soon as you think you’ve got a handle on what’s happening, Jessica and Guilhem skip off somewhere else altogether. Yet, thanks to a strong production and the ever-engaging personalities of its creators, it never feels incoherent. Fans of music unafraid to adventure into the unknown will absolutely adore this album, and it’s likely to feature high amidst my albums of the year, but it’s not an album to be undertaken lightly or ill-advisedly, for it stands outside of almost any other band currently active. 9/10
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