The Electrokit’s latest gives us good reason to go back over recent releases. Last year’s EP, a self-titled debut, was a collection of tracks that moved easy and fluid through pop infused chilled electronica. Every sound was precisely designed, from glittering synthlines to pitched pulsing beats, to warm pads that stretched and spun outwards. There’s a cool of sense wonder to the soundscapes that flowed, and just a hint of prog-rock melancholy.

‘Pleasure Dome’ glitched up and pumped its way calmly through repeated and high-glossed refrains. As rhythms competed with loose modulations, melodies hung tight and sprawled. ‘Attic Song‘ and ‘Elephant’ took those strands of textures and pulled them in different directions. The first doubled down on those intricate rhythms to make something more urgent and pressing, ‘Elephant’ backed off away from the glitch and relied on a bass driven groove. It’s the most heated track on that soft glow EP, like a slow simmer coming to boil.

With the loose feel of Lindstrom or Four Tet at their softest, or Caribou at his most intimate, no matter how busy or empty the sound, every space, twist and turn came out polished.

So now we move onto ‘Essentiel‘, a lean brooding track that picks at the question of what or what is not essential. As only essential shops remained open, and all non-essentials shut down, the places we met that were closed up for months took something else along with them; that life blood of human connection. This song values its worth and welcomes its return, and asks what we’re worth on our own.

All this is set to an ominous synth that sounds like dystopian warnings. The rhythm is simpler than anything previous with a singular, purposeful stride. In the background, a chamber of voices and swirls give a strange isolationist feel. What gives the song strength is its vocals, in French which I had to translate. They send out the feel of a tense paranoia that comes from lack of contact and touch.

And as for all of the things that we’re missing? See the accompanying video below. Touch is a thing that we all learnt to miss and a kiss is as good as it gets.

And thank you to Franck a.k.a The Electrokit, for all help in translating the words. If translating to English with Google as I did, consider ‘De l’essence‘ as something close to ‘spirit‘, or ‘that which comes from the essence‘.

De l’essence; qui est essence.
Qui est dans la nature de quelque chose ou de quelqu’un; qui est
constitutif de quelque chose.
Qui est nécessaire à l’existence de quelque chose.
Fondamental, important.
Indispensable.
Principal, primordial, capital.
Qui ne fait pas partie des accessoires.

Distances non essentielles, singularité essentielle
Quelle est notre tâche en cette vie? Quel est notre essentiel ?
Quelle est notre tâche en cette vie? Quel est notre essentiel ?

Un être humain, est appelé humain singulier essentiel.
Il est isolé si, dans un cercle assez petit, ayant cet être humain pour centre, il n’y a pas d’autre être humain singulier.

La substance.
Dont on ne peut se passer; qui sait se rendre indispensable.
Quelle est notre tâche en cette vie? Quel est notre essentiel ?
Quelle est notre tâche en cette vie? Quel est notre essentiel ?