About this time every year, I generally head to the Côte d’Azur for work purposes. The days are long, working with clients in the day, but fun, with social events in the evening. My favourite soundtrack for those trips is Phoenix, one of my favourite French acts, with the warm, sunny but wistful vibe they create forming the perfect backing for these trips.
As I prep for my eighth such trip, Martin Oh’s Better Place slid into my inbox, and as a French indie artist based in Barcelona, it boasts a sunny European vibe, and more than a (French!) touch of Phoenix’s sound. Production work is handled by established musician and producer SOHN, who has formerly worked with the likes of Banks, and the polish and experience shows.
Straight lined synths, muted guitars, and bruised vocals give this the kind of buoyant, sunny vibe, undershot with a dose of yearning, that Phoenix have perfected over the years. Martin’s vocal shifts gears between the downbeat introspection of the verse and the insistent and determined performance of the chorus. It is almost like moving from talking to himself to speaking to the song’s inspiration, his vocal ever so slightly cracking as he does so. Beneath this, soft electronics gradually wrap around him, additional layers surrounding the central vocal and guitar to create an increasingly emotive climax.
Better Place is just two-and-a-half minutes long, but within that time it packs enough ideas, emotion, and energy for something far longer.