Roméo Poirier - Off The Record (Faitiche)

Roméo Poirier - Off The Record (Faitiche) "Off The Record" [Faitiche 39], the new album from French collagist Roméo Poirier, is a playful dive into the overlooked sonic debris of recording studios. Across fourteen compact pieces, Poirier stitches together fragments of studio chatter: moments never meant to be heard beyond the control room. We catch snippets of engineers giving instructions, musicians chatting between takes, mics being adjusted, and the occasional false start. Everyone stops. Back to the top: one, two, three, four.

Poirier’s methodology resonates with the ethos of Accumulation, the artistic practice championed by Arman, Jean Tinguely and Daniel Spoerri, in which everyday objects are assembled rather than altered. The creative act lies in the curation. In much the same way, Off The Record unfolds as a sonic assemblage: fourteen tracks constructed from over a thousand found sounds sourced from studio archives. These fragments are manipulated (twisted, stretched, chopped, reassembled, slowed down and sped up) until they coalesce into something wholly new. Vintage voices captured on dusty microgrooves intermingle with digital samples lifted from YouTube, forming a layered conversation that evokes the sensation of stepping into a rehearsal already in progress.

By turning his attention to the overlooked rituals that precede the moment the red light flicks on, Poirier crafts a narrative that is both intimate and expansive. He achieves something rare: transforming technical process into a listening experience that is evocative, richly textured and remarkably accessible. The result speaks across boundaries, unfolding in a musical language that feels dreamlike, more concerned with atmosphere than linearity, as if rendered in grainy monochrome. In doing so, Poirier reminds us that the act of collecting and curating sound, like objects, can be a profound form of artistic expression.

Poirier’s deep fascination with the mechanics of sound recording is unmistakable. “The List,” a track featuring a chorus of voices (among them Space Afrika’s Josh Inyang, Andrew Pekler, Jake Muir, Lisa Lerkenfeldt and Patricia Wolf) reciting iconic studio spaces, serves as a playful yet reverent nod to the environments that shape sonic history. The album as a whole feels like a passion project, rich with sly humour and surreal flourishes that demystify a process often hidden behind technical jargon and studio lore. Indelibly brilliant. Not to be missed!

Rating:8.7/10