You can’t really go wrong with a bit of European synth pop and, duly, Belgium’s Paul Biss brings us some tightly looped musical pleasure with his album “Quelques Coups de Telephone” whilst sequencing in his own particular brand of laconic wit and charm.
The songs themselves could have come from anywhere within the glory days of synth pop and evoke memories of those better times successfully. That does not, however, make this an album of the past for, even as the ghosts of the past dance for us once more, it becomes clear that Paul Biss is more than a revivalist. He paints pictures of the past on the present without ever having to actually steal a sample with “La Photo De Famille” and “Quleques Coups De Telephone” being particularly effective examples of his ability to time travel inside the history of music with impunity.
This is, of course, all very clever stuff that will keep the connoisseurs of such things happy but, for the rest of us who are unaccustomed to spotting all the musical cues, there are some fine dramatic moments to enjoy such as “Mr Nobody” and “Délivrance” that make the stage that Paul Biss performs upon seem more real than fantasy. That’s chanson, as they say in France (and probably Belgium too).