Colleen - Colleen Et Les Boîtes À Musique (Leaf, 2006)

1		John Levers The Ratchet (0:30)
2		What Is A Componium? - Part 1 (6:45)
3		Charles's Birthday Card (0:48)
4		Will You Gamelan For Me? (3:02)
5		The Sad Panther (1:53)
6		Under The Roof (3:09)
7		What Is A Componium? - Part 2 (3:06)
8		A Bear Is Trapped (1:04)
9		Please Gamelan Again (2:30)
10		Your Heart Is So Loud (3:56)
11		Calypso In A Box (0:47)
12		Bicycle Bells (2:28)
13		Happiness Nuggets (2:13)
14		I'll Read You A Story (6:51)

Colleen aka Cecile Schott is a lady we've always had a fondness for, throughout her last two endearing albums she defined a sound, an unpretentious delicate weaving of instruments and samples which tickled our eardrums in the most ethereal way imaginable. Armed with a loop pedal and a cache of instrumental weaponry she layered whimsical sound over whimsical sound and subtly carved out a niche for herself in the overpopulated world of electronic music. 'Colleen Et Les Boites A Musique' ("Colleen and the music boxes"), however, is her most arresting and sublime offering to date - constructed entirely from the impossibly beautiful sounds of chiming music boxes. Opening with the clanking and winding of 'John Levers the Ratchet', this is the perfect introduction, as if the record were being wound like a music box to run across its 40 minute life-span before returning to stillness. The music box has, of course, been used before within a contemporary framework (Aphex Twin's breathtaking "Nanou" for one), but the way Schott composes seems so obviously matched with the mechanical and naïve qualities we hear that she seems to own the concept. "Colleen Et Les Boites A Musique" is in fact so sublime that her output to date seems to have been merely leading up to this serendipitous moment - concept and execution coming together for a wondrous display of simplicity and beauty. Like the soundtrack to your favourite half-remembered fairytale, you won't find a warmer, more inviting record this year.

Boomkat

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