Audiopile Review: Coming in hot off last week’s ROTW for Astrid Sonne’s ‘Great Doubt’, we’ve got the debut album from French-born, UK-based Vanessa Bedoret, who was on violin duty for Sonne’s recent UK tour. Instantly awestruck by Great Doubt, which quickly positioned itself in contention for a best-of 2024 pick, we were more than eager to check out anything else even remotely connected to Sonne’s absorptive creation. Eyes is an even more beguiling and mystifying album, shooting us straight down a new wormhole built of deconstructed trip-hop, abstracted R&B and faded dream-pop, all connected via her richly textured baroque-ambience. A quick look into her mix for NTS last year is a nice breadcrumb trail of the stylistic checkpoints found across Eyes— the chopped n screwed-industrial remix of Kelis’ “Milkshake”, Coby Sey and Nourished By Time’s genre-pushing R&B, Björk’s choral dramatics, and a healthy dose of experimental and compositional pieces running through the mix like electric wiring. At the front and centre of Eyes is Bedoret’s arresting violin (she was classically trained on it), which lingers between disarming ambient overtones to sweet laments that cut through the dramatic atmosphere. However, this is no mere exercise in sonic wallpapering. Puncturing the cinematic, icy soundscapes are rapid-fire beats and staggered hits of synth that sounds like Mica Levi behind the decks of a feverish trip-hop album that could be issued on Hyperdub. Much like Sonne on Great Doubt, Bedoret’s voice is the emotive weight, ably flipping the mood with a vocal range that cuts from soaring enchantress to a hushed lull, her lyrics drawn out and barely perceptible, begging to be unlocked. A staggeringly beautiful and striking debut album, which comes courtesy of the prescient Scenic Route, who also brought the world Nourished By Time’s ‘Erotic Probiotic 2’ last year! Edition of 100, sold out at the source.

Treating songwriting as an instinctive process, Bedoret transforms her deeply personal experiences into pure emotion. Not following any set narrative, Eyes takes the listener on a journey via their own experiences, prompting introspection through Bedoret’s hypnotic melodies. Through the album, she awakens the audience’s imagination, to open up their emotional response.

Vanessa began her classical training at age 6 and on completion at 18 she embraced the thrill of playing guitar in punk bands, and like many at the turn of adulthood, was quickly captured by the allure of the dancefloor. She also counts black metal to opera and from eurodance to IDM as inspiration. Her deep understanding of musical form elevates her experimentation to a truly unique sonic experience, one that never strays too far from her original love of classical music.

Through the lens of a life lived to it’s fullest and one that does not shy from experiencing the rawest of emotions, it’s clear that Bedoret has a nack for translating personal observations into cinematic crescendoes. The field recordings throughout only heighten this feeling adding both a grounding and other worldy sensibility. Lyrically, she allows you to peek into her private world and for a fleeting moment letting you lock eyes with hers, asking what do you see?