Laurent Saiet & Guests - After The Wave [Trace 056]

Released via the Trace label as their cat.no. 056 on June 19th, 2k21 is "After The Wave", the latest album outing by long standing producer / composer Laurent Saiet who's been a part of the imprints artist family since 1995. With his new longplayer, housed in a beautiful and unique baroque collage 7" foldout cover the artist diverts from his usual solo approach but provides a basic mellotron-based foundation on and to which a plethora of guests contribute, e.g. Edward Ka-Spel of the Legendary Pink Dots and Quentin Rollet of Nurse With Wound amongst others. The result of this new way of working on music is an eleven tracks and roughly 55 minutes spanning journey starting with the eerie, angelic, large scale SynthWave epos of "Bypass" as well as the excellent, stripped down and brooding PostPunk / KrautDisco crossover of "The First Wave" which both lay the foundation for great things to come like the surprisingly Jazz Noir leaning "Mambo Of The 21st Century" which, once again, evokes memories of the legendary "Showroom Recordings Series" on Cheap Records, the excellent Desert Blues of "The Second Wave", the elastic, intricately layered Post-PostRock / Indietronica Noir fusion of "The Third Wave" and the somewhat innocent, yet dramatic and captivating LeftfieldPop of "From The Rocks" which is defo our favorite cut on this highly recommended album. Good stuff. Get!