Valgidrà – Watched Watchers

"Watched Watchers" is Valgidrà's 4th release in 2 years on IRM Netlabel, coming after a couple of collaborative EPs with Konejo and a first LP, "Warplush Vol 1", released almost a year ago to the day. The French musician based in Rennes (Brittany), influenced at the time by Boards of Canada and Aphex Twin's "Selected Ambient Works" among other Warp alumni, recorded this second album over nearly two years, and chose a more fragmented approach, one of dynamic narrative full of contrasts and changes of directions, making its pauses in rhythm all the more captivating : https://indierockmag.bandcamp.com/album/watched-watchers
In a similar way to "Psyence Fiction", "Watched Watchers" combines baroque sampling and abstract beats ("David II"), Lynchian trip-hop and spoken word ("Hypnik Jerk"), destructured electronic layers and acoustic melodies (the first single, "Golden Trap"), cinematic ambient and crystalline melancholia ("Yellow Kalaw"), tormented orchestrations and freeform rhythms ("Strings Interlude"), saturated synths and hip-hop grooves ("Queried", perhaps the climax of the record), evolving from an intoxicating downtempo ("Moaïs") to colder and uneasy electronics (the title track), from melancholic breakbeats ("Mood") to muffled techno pulsations ("Sampling Life"). Like UNKLE at the time, back when DJ Shadow was still producing the project, the mood is rather dark, even slightly paranoiac, to the extent of the theme that underlies this constrasted and yet cohesive new album : as an observer, aren't we ourselves observed by others ? Are we subject or object, do we really play the part we think we are playing ?