French artist Antoine Guigan has released “Sailors”, a six track EP full of love, loss, strength, and bereavement. This self-produced full length release features Charles Eric Charrier a musician key to understanding European punk and captures the sailor’s lost attune with the ocean that is life. Guigan’s ability to tell a story across the complex audio canvases as well as compose them is evident from the EP.
Starting with the first song, “Casey is Sad” Guigan introduces a character that suffers from loneliness by singing the lyrics mournfully with back up from the horns. The feeling of loneliness and grief prevails the whole EP and refers to another unifying concept of the record, the dramatic emotional swings of a simple sailor’s life.
The sorrowful song, “Diane” is about a one sided love, and never ending despair. Achieving this emotional realism, Guigan becomes a man who is in love and has lost his lover, dreaming of the meeting in the kingdom adjacent to the sea in the night.
The title song ‘Sailors’ is literally interspersed with the piano and bass, evoking the desire for love. The refrain carries a line about floating, which will find a sympathetic ear from anyone, who ever felt adrift. The lyrical power of this track perfectly embody the theme of perserverance and the music narrows down the listener’s focus to make it an emotionally powerful one.
The EP closes out with “The Crone,” which has Guigan steadily building organs and shuffling percussion throughout, as he contemplates the march of time on the track. Lovely to end on; it makes even the listener think of the inevitability of death.
As for the music style, Sailors combines folk-rock, psychedelic and synthesizer which is a versatility of Guigan. He ranges from subtle analog melodies to folk influenced motifs taking everyone on a cinematic ride. Every song is arranged tightly, with Guigan playing the instruments by himself but supported by Charrier’s production style.
With “Sailors” Antoine Guigan brings out an excellent blend of musical work with themes of life struggles and the strength that develops when they are encountered. Using the beautiful musical score, embracing the traditions of movie orchestral scores, and using genuinely emotional lyrical and vocal samples, Guigan has worked on a timeless ship, built for a sailor in Everyman, fearing the storms of life.
