Last year, Nine Skies released The Lightmaker, an extraordinary album, life-affirming, and winner of awards on this website, including my “track of 2023” for The Haunted.
Come 2024, and the wonderful Anne-Claire Rallo has initiated a new project, Frant1c, with a debut album, A Brand New World recorded alongside her Nine Skies collaborator, Alexandre Lamia.
The project was born out of the most unimaginably sad circumstances, the passing of Anne-Claire’s partner, the great Eric Bouillette and tells the story of Charlie and Hope, life partners. One morning, Charlie wakes up alone in the middle of a completely different and devastated world. He goes in search of his soul mate and makes discoveries and new encounters. The story is, naturally, an analogy for the situation Anne-Claire found herself in, and there is catharsis in this rich album. Grief is, unfortunately, a part of the human condition, and how we deal with it varies significantly from person to person. For some, such as the warm human being in question, it is creating a work of art to be enjoyed and cherished.
A Brand New World has its official release on 27th September 2024. Pop along to https://frant1c.bandcamp.com/album/a-brand-new-world to see how to order, something I strongly recommend to you.
Readers familiar with Anne-Claire’s work will recognise many of the artists who contribute. Anne-Claire herself and Lamia play guitars, keyboards, and piano, in addition to arrangements. Fellow Nine Skies artists, Alexis Bietti and Johnny Marter provide the rhythm section. There are guitars, violin, piano, and backing vocals recorded by Eric. Martin Wilson (The Room, Grey Lady Down) plays the part of Charlie, Helen Tiron (Sun Q) plays the part of Hope. Spoken words are provided by Andy Rowe, there is a class saxophone contribution on “Where Have You Been” from Laurent Benhamou, whilst Steve Anderson has a guitar solo on “On The Run” and Guy Marro provides vocals on “Come Back To Earth”. The whole album sounds sumptuous, and for that, we can thank Mr John Mitchell.
So, just over an hour of music, with ten tracks to unpick. Let’s go.
The Awakening is our prologue, the brand-new world extolling Charlie to wake up and welcoming him to it. The opening music accompanying the spoken words has an ethereal, dreamlike quality to it, before a gorgeous piano and that achingly sad cello take us to a realisation level of what the core of this album is about. What a loss to our intelligent music world.
The main album begins with Come Back To Earth, with Marro providing a strong voice in the chorus supporting the vocals of Wilson & Eric with dreams and broken wings. There is some fine understated guitar riffing on this track underneath soaring soundscapes created by the synths on a dramatic and operatic track.
People In Their Cages speaks volumes to me lyrically. Regular readers of my musings know that I am deeply mistrustful of our corporate culture and the media which feeds ignorance, even though we have access to a far wider range of material than any time in human history. More is less, indeed, and this track talks of us in our cages, just a media nation, blind without our gogglebox in a zombie nation. Brilliant. The dystopian nature of the chugging riffs and swirling keys more than matches the words, with some Floydian sound excerpts to boot. There is an all too short keyboard burst right at the end which I would have liked to have heard more of.
Where Have You Been is the first single from the album, and it is embedded below. Lyrically plaintive, asking the question again and again, and receiving no response, the sense of sheer loss palpable. The acoustic guitar at the start is pretty alongside quiet keys with some very dramatic and searching guitar notes complementing the quality vocals perfectly before the sax takes the emotional impact up several notches. This track is a very strong contender for “single release of 2024” on this website.
The Ballad of Peggy Pratt is a wee bit of a curiosity, because the intimate nature of the words strongly suggests a tribute to someone known to Anne-Claire and Wilson, the lyricists. A tale of a woman who was a whirling dervish on amphetamine, dancing ballet to burlesque, in an epic track more than thirteen minutes long. Following a delicate introduction, the track explodes into life and light with a symphonic blast of noise, and as it develops, it is very much an orchestral rock piece, something I think would benefit live with band and classical troupe performing together. The moods and sonic levels wax and wane (there are some very heavy elements) in a song that rewards repeated listening. Certainly, some of the guitar work is outstanding, dripping with emotion, and it all builds in intensity towards the final flourish. Another contender for “epic of the year” here, this stands comparison to any other I have heard in 2024.
Sweet Confusion has interplay between Wilson & Tiron, the female hurting the feelings of the lost man, a constant reminder of what was, and what he wishes was still. Therefore, the violin here is the almost perfect musical expression of what is happening before the vocal introduction is accompanied by a darker, heavier tone, some of the drum work especially intricate and powerful accompanying Charlie’s words, the delicate violin doing the same at the opposite end of the noise spectrum with Hope and her interaction with him. Helen Tiron’s performance is a highlight of my aural year, a beautiful voice, and her plea for healing brings us a stunning guitar burst. This is a great piece of music, demanding to be played very loud in a dark room. Grief is confusing, emotions ranging from tortured love to equally harrowing dislike at the impact of the object of that love leaving.
On The Run follows, and it is an unpleasant experience for Charlie, having to outrun Crazies all around him. The lovely opening piano and gentle synths give little notice of this at the start, a gorgeous pastoral landscape produced, but the harsher tone at the introduction of the “run” lyrics certainly does, a clever change of mood which is unexpected to the initial listener with some good heavy guitar rock embedded within.
Take A Little Time (The Encounter) has more vocal interplay between Charlie & Hope. Love is so blind, and this is a meeting in the void, the distance between left behind and traveller too vast to overcome. This song is proof positive that you don’t necessarily need to make a huge noise in order to make an emotional point in music. The piano and then orchestration perfectly accompany a vocal duet of the highest order, love in each syllable, deeply moving in its aching sense of loss, as good a storytelling piece as you are likely to hear in this or any other year.
A New Path is the beginning of moving on, some very impressive chords and riffs in a heavier piece that, whilst not altogether dark, does carry within it that sense of resentment at being forced to walk said path, before the most gorgeous quieter piano and acoustic guitar-led passage that is the embodiment of that move forwards, with trepidation, fear, but also determination and it leads into the epilogue that is the title track, that new reality (wake up), discover what fate has in store for you (wake up). Please wake up! The bright notes of keys and guitars have an opposite in the gorgeously sad violin, the dichotomy of moods so cleverly performed.
A Brand New World is pretty much an essential purchase. To conclude this review, this is a work which not only speaks to the emotion and grief felt but talks to us all in its common decency and humanity, and it comes very highly recommended.