With Hørd, Sebastien Carl has always enjoyed navigating troubled waters. For ten years, his project has blended influences from cold wave, EBM and synthpop to create nuanced music where emotional turmoil takes precedence over synthetic coldness. His last album, Sciences, already showed a more pronounced attraction to light. But does that mean Hørd has become sunny? Not really: the light remained pale, like a sun struggling to break through thick layers of clouds. It is in this fragile balance that Hørd finds its beauty and its atypical tone. With Bluestar, Carl warned us that the sound would become even lighter and softer. He added, transparently, that since no label wanted to support this release, he was taking the opportunity to launch his own label, Paragon Recordings.
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Bluestar: with such a name, listeners can already let their imaginations run wild. Could we see it as a sign of an ensemble guided by the star of melancholy? Not at all! The artist explains that it refers to the substance used by forensics to detect bloodstains on a crime scene, revealing what lies beneath the surface. If there's one thing we always appreciate about Hørd, it's his ability to bring images to life, to create a space conducive to imagination and daydreaming. Always cinematic, his music could do without lyrics and still work. The synths on Awake, the opening track, could just as easily accompany a sunrise as end credits. There is always this balance, this precarious elegance, this threshold on which Hørd stands. Later on the album, the transition between Cath and Twins, with its sobriety and delicacy, keeps us in this intermediate state between nostalgia, hope, and the desire to move forward but linger a little longer here on earth.
The EBM influences that were once detectable have almost completely disappeared from the music. Bluestar is an album for losing yourself, for dreaming. We look at our feet, which are no longer moving, but in reality we are contemplating a whole host of inner thoughts lost in between. The sound is cottony, airy. While we can still detect a few more industrial or rigorous atmospheres (the rhythmic programming of RKVK, the pulsations of Fade), we won't break a sweat. Carl likes to use the label ‘lightwave’ to describe his music, as opposed to darkwave. This bold choice can sometimes frustrate us bats (White Trash had the potential to become a goth anthem but sounds a little too harmless clubbing for our sharp ears!), but it has the merit of being personal and consistent from start to finish.
Paradoxically, it is when Hørd seems to come out of his shell the most to follow through on his approach that these introspections give rise to the most memorable moments of grace. Thus, The Blue Dream, where the alchemy between a twilight keyboard à la Nine Inch Nails and pop à la Woodkid shines with its accuracy and unhidden emotions, or The Dark Horse, with its haunting whispers and retro-futuristic cinematic synth, carry us away with their quiet, discreet but irresistible force. The elegance is as much in the approach, consistent down to the welcoming textures with smooth contours, as it is in the subtlety of the music that reaches us more through fragile spectral echoes than through powerful sonic assaults.
Poetic, melancholic and dreamlike, with a unique sensibility, Bluestar could be unsettling. Released at the dawn of winter, it is neither an album for freezing nights nor the blazing sun of summer. Gentle spring warmth or autumnal melancholy, it's up to you to decide, if you really want to pick a side. At first, you might wonder when we'll get moving, when Hørd will get moving, when we'll emerge from this hazy state. So let yourself be enveloped by the mist, forget the passing of time, and you'll finally find yourself in a good place to stay for a while.
