Minuit Machine
Queendom
Synth Religion
It would be tempting to consider the sleek club stylings of the new record by longstanding French darkwave project Minuit Machine in relation to changes in the project’s personnel. With Hélène De Thoury, the long-term writer and producer of the project having retired from music due to the tragic side-effects of COVID, Minuit Machine is now the solo project of vocalist Amandine Stioui. And while there’s plenty in Queendom which could go on to distinguish this era of the band, the changes it makes are often subtle ones.
Given how directly club-focused the pre-release singles which begin the record are, it might be easy to forget how 24, the last LP to be helmed by De Thoury, held similar priorities. But if 24‘s rhythmic focus felt like a bootstrapping of the icy spaciousness of the band’s roots, using massive, echoing kicks as radar-like probes of Minuit Machine’s hazy atmospheres, Queendom feels much more nimble and insulated, with its arpeggiated programming sitting square in the listener’s face rather than on some distant horizon. Whether in the freestyle halftime of “Denied” or the moody bass which paves the way for slowly unfurling synth peals on opener “Hold Me”, Stioui’s found ways of keeping even the most insistent of beats approachable and almost cozy.
Queendom thus isn’t a total break from Minuit Machine’s existing style, but for every moment which hearkens back to the past, there’s another which takes a quiet detour down a lesser trod path. The icy, stabby leads of “Cent Fois” call back to the stormy midnight raves of Violent Rains‘ club bids, though Stioui’s laid back and disarming vocal approach (also appearing on third single “Party People”) brings the drama somewhat to heel. That more off-the-cuff delivery is carried through on the melancholy “Mes souviens”, the with its reflective and understated vocal standing in stark contrast to the pensive slowburn of the title track, which still feels of a piece with the shimmering darkwave monoliths which cemented the band’s rep a decade back.
Between De Thoury’s departure, Stioui stepping up to the plate as a composer, and the presence of collaborators like Lloyd Philippon (RAUMM), there are a slew of factors which could have either botched Queendom‘s equanimity, or at least pushed it beyond fans’ hopes and expectations for a new Minuit Machine record. That it finds some ways of tastefully changing up the project’s delivery while still keeping one foot in the elements which made it so enthralling initially is a victory in itself.
