ENGLISH // FRENCH
URBAN FOLK
MUSIC FROM
SWITZERLAND
After a first folk album in 2013 Fairytales At Half Past Six, Alf Pastix released High, an album steeped in urban melancholy.
Normal people emerge when he goes to bed, after a night of composing. From this auroral hour, half past six, the musician Max Torche, drew his pseudonym. Alf Pastix, which a first folk disc installed on the local scene in 2013; Cajon, violin, piano, bass, saxophone and guitar formed the acoustic setting for his voice. We found her again, singular ( between Jake Bugg and Bob Dylan without really taking after either of them, racy, that we would say nassillarde if it wasn't pejorative ), on the new album High.
Alf Pastix has changed a lot, from a sextet to a duo to deploy his urban melancholy with meticulous pulsations, alternately dancing and downtempo, which punctuate the cyclic chords of an arpeggiated guitar. There is naivety in these atmospheric titles, but also a real sound carried by a production full of electronic effects by Dami3n. Bertrand Siffert, sound engineer of The Young Gods and experienced ear, was in charge of bringing the final touch to the fourteen tracks. Coming along with a rigorous aesthetic made of pink and grey, dark and pop like an oxymoron. ©TR