FIN DE SIÈCLE

"Nine Barns"

OPN - 2007

LP - 300 copies

This new LP limited to 300 copies was recorded between 2003 and 2004, and is presented as the transition between Fin De Siècle's previous albums, "Sans Titre" and "Patagonie". The 14 new tracks here collected also mark the end of the French project, after five years of existence and a considerable amount of releases. In comparison to the other two full-lengths, "Nine Barns" sounds more organic and compact, featuring single tracks created with a larger use of instruments like strings, violin (played by Laurence Cailleux), piano and guitar, some vocals, as well as rhythms and the usual arsenal of found noises.

Particularly beautiful are the melancholic atmospheres of "Lonely", conjured by a calibrated mixture of keyboards, piano and delicate percussion, the suspended feelings of "The Feast", where distant sounds and noises evoke images of a desolated and disturbing landscape, the junk percussions playing with children voices, flutes, violin and guitar chords in "Stranger". The album is closed by the darker and slightly noisier "Summertime 2", not however lacking a touch of melancholy itself, and by the excellent "Epilogue", a touching chamber symphony for piano and violin, surely the best composition of the set.

"Nine Barns" is undoubtedly Fin De Siècle's most accomplished effort: whereas "Patagonie" suffered from a certain repetitivity, this final chapter of the project's lifetime will remain as the perfect sealing stone of its history.

- Simon V.

Website: http://www.findesiecle.org

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/findesieclefr