Jullian Angel

After several years, where he made his early home recordings, confidentially, Jullian Angel met the founder member of Another Record's label, which got him through the French indie-pop scene. Melancholic Ecstasy (2004) was the first issued album of this prolific songwriter, used to the long sessions of home-studio work. Recorded and produced on his own (like each of his records until now), this album showed an amazing melting of low-fi samples, odd climates, between light and darkness, always linked to a pop framework...

With its unusual and rich production, this record rather reminded of a few musicians like Beck, Badly drawn Boy, Eels, or Minimal Compact. But it didn't let you know about the folk side of Jullian, where acoustic stuff takes precedence over programming,loops and experimentations. Yet, it's precisely the way he's chosen to perform his music on stage, playing only with a guitar and a sampler to overdub his voice and riffs, like Joseph Arthur does, for example. So he notably opened for Pedro The Lion and Mansfield.tya at La Maroquinerie (Paris).

Then, the new released album of Jullian Angel, "life was the answer" is quite a collection of indie-folk songs, where the pop spirit of Melancholic Ecstasy still remains, with also a few tracks that sound more like rock. This time, the vocals keep the leading role, through timeless ballads, between Radiohead, Nick Drake or Leonard Cohen, like on "Some dead survive", featuring the Brussells artist Half asleep. The lyrics of Jullian seem also more prevailing with these new songs. They are written like some independent poems and present a mystic and metaphysical nature, through universal questions or more intimate feelings.