Louis Philippe & The Night Mail - The Road To The Sea (Preorder 02/05/25)

Louis Philippe & The Night Mail - The Road To The Sea

Label: Tapete - TR578LP - 4015698029277
Format: LP, Album, Black
Country: UK
Released: 2nd May 2025
Genre: Alternative/Modern
Style: Alternative/Modern

Description
Louis Philippe and The Night Mail return with a new captivating record where the songs are once again faultless. Carrying on the journey away from the classic towards the unexpected with new synths and hand claps adding a sense of the abrupt and, with voices calling from the wings, a sense of play and a lack of fear.

Beyond the regular tales routinely retold, there's a secret, parallel narrative of pop history. One written by the true enthusiasts and eclectics, in which a perennial favourite like Pet Sounds didn't just inspire endless claims of exceptionality but a long trail of harmonic riches leading all the way to the 21st century. In this alternative universe Philippe Auclair aka Louis Philippe, Anglo-French singer- songwriter extraordinaire, has been an admired fixture for the past four decades, from his beginnings as protagonist and house producer at Mike Alway's fabled él Records label through his forays into the Shibuya sound and collaborations with the likes of Bertrand Burgalat, XTC's Dave Gregory, High Llamas' Sean O'Hagan and Young Marble Giants' Stuart Moxham right up to his more recent adventures with The Night Mail.

A colourful mix of delicate textures, subtly sculpted reverb, melodic mellotron madness, Wilsonesque layered vocal harmonies, and the sort of long lost, very English whimsy it would take an anglophile Frenchman to evoke. And yet, in its transparent spaciousness dotted with charming detail, The Road To The Sea also brings to mind the sound of Summer Dancing, Andy Lewis' acclaimed 2017 collaboration with the late, great Judy Dyble. Not without reason, he is taking the production credit on this album that is a sort of continuation, but by no means a repetition of its predecessor Thunderclouds.

In many ways The Road to the Sea is the playfully psychedelic album that Louis Philippe always had in him, but never got round to making. He has now.