Here we are, in 2024, a year that sounds neither like the future, nor the present, and we kick it off with the glitchy electronic pop that is Closer.
pecq is the musical project of duo Nicholas (Nikò) O’Brien and Hannah (Jakes) Jacobs. Vocalist, producer, and songwriter Jakes brings her talents as a classically trained pianist and touring member of Arlo Parks’ live band. Her pursuit of music has been a route to escapism, as well as a path to a sense of identity, as she frequently finds herself impacted by her immune condition. Nikò compliments this with experience working as a producer, multi-instrumentalist and engineer for Cocteau Twins’ vocalist Liz Fraser, among others. Nikò’s aesthetic stems from the psych and prog scene of his French hometown, a commune on the outskirts of Paris, from which the duo derive their name — Le Pecq.
On Closer, pecq have created a restrained piece of electronic pop music. Fuzzy electronic bass tones establish the song’s pulse, overlayed with frequent clattering percussion elements that briefly spark before being clipped harshly back into silence. Jakes’ vocals hover and soar above all this, a wing on the wind, organic sounding and yet filtered and twisted at the same time.
Together, pecq establish a sense of motion and emotion, as Closer gently crawls through me, the tendrils of something winding itself into my mind, before a feeling of release. That creeping sense likely comes from Jakes’ sense of isolation and loneliness, as she describes:
‘Closer is about distance. I’ve been away for most of this year touring. It was so freeing and inspiring to visit places I never thought I’d see, but after a few months I struggled being away from my friends and trying to finish songs with Nikò being in an opposite time zone. I was seeing all these new things, but I couldn’t ever communicate them properly, so they started to feel like a weird dream. So Closer was originally about isolation, but it was finished on the plane trip home so a different mood crept in — getting closer to your besties, coming home full of fresh things to share.’
Check out Closer below.