Tour-Maubourg-2 © Thomas Prunier

Tour-Maubourg is a relatively new talent and, should he produce a few more records like this, Solitude Collective will mark the ascent of a major one. Tour-Maubourg has just a handful of tracks to his name, including two EPs on Pont Neuf, and they reveal a producer who has a poise, patience and the refined taste of someone that both appreciates and understands the best of deep house instead of its momentarily fashionable highlights.

“Artifice” is a showcase for him: cinematic and achingly lyrical, with a single trumpet breaking through the waves and almost drowning in synths. I listened to this through three minutes, rewound it, and played it again three or four times, like the crucial stanza in a poem that grants everything that came before it a deeper meaning.

Tour-Maubourg: Solitude Collective / Pont Neuf
A1. Tour-Maubourg: “Artifice” (5:34)
A2. Tour-Maubourg: “Solitude Collective” (6:13)
A3. Tour-Maubourg: “Hold Me” (6:14)
B1. Tour-Maubourg: “Albatros” (6:59)
B2. Tour-Maubourg: “1984” (6:45)

Photo © Thomas Prunier