Audiopile Review: Stunning debut album from Parisian duo Rue des Garderies, a recently forged alliance made up of Désiré Bonaventure & Zach, both new names to us but are known quantities within the experimental scene in Paris. In fact, their name is taken after Rue des Gardes, a notable but now defunct Paris “hotspot” of the underground scene there, which is also where this self-titled album was recorded before shutting down permanently. Recorded live in a single take, the 3xLP improvised set is 90+ minute slow-motion whirl of heady bliss and gauzy textures, essentially ambient at its core but striking upon many touchstones during its transfixing journey. Playing out as a single track, though broken up over several sections, the duo take a syrupy slow approach throughout as they delicately pile on billowing synths and clipping ambience, dub-centric knocking percussion falling in and out of the mix alongside samples that are smudged and delayed into narcotic euphoria. Occasionally some beats do emerge from the thick haze, fitted with wall-shaking bass, the cloud-rap adjacent loops drop like a sonic depth charge. Dub-techno, shoegaze, drone, ambient, experimental, fourth world, psychedelic—Rue des Garderies capture their subtle essences in one of the most captivating electronic albums we’ve come across in recent years. An out of nowhere stunner, and criminally limited to 150 copies! Don’t blink.

Rue des Garderies is a distillate produced by the spontaneous collaboration of Désiré Bonaventure and Zach, two musicians evolving in the Parisian alternative scenes and so named in homage to a former local hotspot of other-music Rue des Gardes – now bygone – where this improvisation took place. Accustomed to exorcising time and space with the multidisciplinary collective †een▲ge g☺d, Zach has also been evolving in various frequencies – beatmaking, mastering – for over 15 years. Désiré Bonaventure, on the other hand, is a member of the duo Euphonic Alliances Ltd. and R.A.F. Soundsystem.

Rue des Garderies was recorded in one take, using samplers and effects, amidst a tangle of cables, with eyes closed, as dawn approached, in anticipation for another moment of the present. Here, Désiré and Zach delve into the in-between worlds (musical, but not limited to), immersing themselves in their cracks, folds and emanations, attempting to narrate them to us.
From this material they shape a new alchemy lasting over 1h30, akin to a prolonged journey into psychedelia, drawing from various currents (such as ambient, drone, IDM, dub techno, and the English electronic scene of the 1990s), rich in organic and analogue textures that overlap, stretch, fold and expand.

The result is a grand and ethereal fresco, with shifting colours and textures, evoking astral projections and sporadic rhythms; a whole other world, populated by shapes, hues and new lives, forming a complex but enchanting sound essay.

Born of a fragile chaos, Rue des Garderies is an ephemeral harmony that accompanies moments of existence; a dance without tangible movement.