UTO‘s “When all you want to do is be the fire part of fire” Album Download ZIP MP3 Files
The French duo UTO is releasing their new album, “When all you want to do is be the fire part of fire,” on April 12th via InFiné. The album is a combination of 90s UK rock, Britpop, and IDM, and includes the singles ‘Zombie’ and ‘Art&Life’. Neysa May Barnett and Emile Larroche make up UTO and they are known for their genre-bending music. Their debut album, “Touch The Lock,” was praised for its “prismatic synth pop” by Pitchfork.
The new album is just as colorful and features Neysa’s unique vocal style, which is similar to Kim Gordon’s off-kilter vocals. The album was written in sections, and the duo came together to hone and finish the songs. The album reflects the challenges faced in 2023 and includes themes of human relationships and the complexities of life. The lead single ‘Zombie’ was released as a taster for the album, and its skittering beats, glitchy electronics, and pummeling sequencers elevate it from the void.
The album’s title, “When all you want to do is be the fire part of fire,” is a reminder to be the flame and not the moth. The album takes listeners on a journey from early man’s discovery of fire to AI, humanity’s next great adventure.
TRACKLIST
- Art&Life – 03:17
- Plumbing – 02:56
- 2MOONS – 04:26
- Unshape – 04:12
- Zombie – 03:36
- Midway – 02:45
- Napkin – 04:08
- Lyrics – 02:32
- Bredouille Feat. HSRS – 03:03
About UTO
UTO is a band from Paris that creates music which can be described as a combination of witch pop, dream pop and trip hop. Their debut album ‘Touch The Lock’ presents their unique vision to the world for the first time, showcasing their ability to embrace paradoxes and contrasts. Their music is grounded in reality but also explores hyperreality, unlocking hard-to-reach emotions and thoughts.
The band consists of Emile and Neysa, who first met in 2013 in Ivry-sur-Seine on the outskirts of Paris. Neysa was studying French literature at Paris 7 while Emile was playing in a band called Saint-Michel. They began making music together in 2016 and have since released several tracks such as ‘That Itch’ and ‘The Beast’, each creating a stir in the blogosphere. With their debut album, they took their time reworking and rewiring their songs, embracing imperfections and surrendering to oblique strategies.
Their latest album channels the listlessness of the last few years, creating liminal audioscapes where sounds intermingle and sometimes repel each other. The songs denote convoluted thought processes that never quite resolve. The lyrics are not about storytelling or responding to a global narrative, but more about feelings of disconnection, as seen in songs like ‘Lock Myself’ and ‘Behind Windows’. Moreover, Neysa sings capriciously in both French and English, exhibiting ambivalence and a sense of indecision. Tracks like ‘Steps in the Dark’ and ‘Souvent Parfois’ elicit a sense of wandering and yearning, while ‘Heavy Metal’ and ‘Délaisse’ invoke a heaviness.
Emile says, “We had to open many doors in ourselves to make this record. We never stuck to one method or style. We had to keep unlocking in order to reach our own holy of holies. This became a kind of freedom to never confine ourselves to choosing one direction. Neysa made tracks on her own for the first time, for instance. She felt she was ready to open that lock.” The duo refers to the place they discovered as a forbidden room where ghosts hide, with the ‘lock’ itself a reference to the doorknob in Alice in Wonderland.
The album-making process began in the summer of 2019 on a narrowboat in Oxford, where they moved in for three weeks with just a guitar, a keyboard, a computer and their voices. The pair worked by day on the barge, starting with snatches of lines or hooks, little acorns that would grow into mighty oaks. Back in Augerville, the pair honed the album in their homemade studio, replete with analogue synthesizers, mellotrons, various drums, and recording equipment. This plethora of stolen sounds adds to the album’s sense of invention and luminosity.
Touch The Lock’s terrain is broadly tempestuous in the first half and more subdued in the second half. Neysa lost a close family friend while the album was still being recorded, bringing a mournful and reflective element to the songs. She writes about the purgatory of watching someone you love suffer on ‘This New Phase’: “I was at the hospital visiting my beloved godmother. She was very ill, in between life and death, in this strange, awkward place, in limbo. I felt pain like a furious hammering. Not soft nor lyrical. This is why I wanted a neutral voice, too; neutrality seemed to me to be more pounding. No frills, just a dark flamenco dance.” The album ends with hope, breaking into a sonic crescendo at its conclusion on ‘Full Presence’. Emile says, “I wanted to make the saxophone sound almost human and the song to stay very stripped down right up until the second part, where the slow gospel intervenes.”
Touch the Lock is a debut record that showcases UTO’s unique style and is one of the best debut records you’ll hear all year. The pair creates music that is ethereal and preternaturally touched, making them an ovni, a word that means UFO in French.
