Sebastien Tellier, a 25-year-old musician from Paris, France, bears an unfortunate physical resemblance to Richard Reid, a 28-year-old shoe-bomber from London, England. Luckily, the resemblance ends with the face. For whereas Reid desires explosive death and destruction, Tellier only desires sleep. Or so it seems. Tellier's debut LP, L'Incroyable Vérité (on Air's new label, Record Makers) aims at sounding lonely. It attains its desired measure of solitude and, regrettably, much, much worse.
At first, I thought the opening track, "Oh Malheur Chez O'Malley" was the theme music from "Dr. Who." This judgment, of course, was patently unfair and premature. Had I exercised patience, I would have realized that, in actuality, it was actually from "Land of the Lost." ("Say, Marshall, it's getting dark outside. We'd better get back before the-- fuck, no, not the Sleestaks!!).
Aside from not fully understanding what the hell a Sleestak was (the tall, greenish-yellow lizard men that populated the Land of the Lost), fear of them always seemed pitifully irrational to me. Yes, they bull-rushed Marshall, Will and Holly with nocturnal regularity, but can we be sure they intended harm? After all, Sleestaks weren't known for their leaping abilities or cat-like reflexes. Perhaps Sleestaks just liked to give hugs? Can anyone really be sure? Lucky for us, Tellier provides an answer to this stone age mystery towards the end of the album.
Sleestaks aside (for the moment), the point remains-- a good chunk of this Frenchman's first LP draws on the anachronistic hues of sci-fi television (and other 60s-70s era theme music, as on the frivolous "Kazoo III") including weird organ vamps and rudimentary synth arrangements. The rest of the album bucks the sci-fi thing in favor of arpeggiated acoustic guitar boredom, with ambient clinks and clatter in the background, and occasionally, humming or singing from the artist himself. Tellier sets the machine in motion, and it goes. And goes. And goes. Songs blend together like days in hell.
But back to the Staks: The album's high point comes when Tellier appears to answer the aforementioned mystery on "Trilogie Femme," a largely somnolent solo-guitar tune, part of which is oddly reminiscent of the pitter-patter plucking sounds of Bugs Bunny walking on his tippy-toes. But in this case, it's clearly not Bugs-- no, the mood is too dark and foreboding. These are the tones not of the animated thespian, but of the scaly doomsayer. Alas, a woman's chilling screams of horror conclude the tune, and the resolution becomes as clear as crystal gravy: she was killed by Sleestaks! Vicious, tip-toeing Sleestaks! It happens.
But besides allowing me several glorious Sleestak references, L'Incroyable Vérité is nearly worthless. Good luck distinguishing lonely Tellier's candlelight drones from one another, and any other element of the powerful emotions he was supposedly aiming for. L'Incroyable Vérité is virtually devoid of melody, climax, or even compelling orchestration, which usually can save slow, moody music like Tellier's. And even though it's not quite as scary as man-eating prehistoric reptiles, L'Incroyable Vérité evokes about the same response: avoidance.
