Another Form of Relief

Much as I try to feature a wide range of music on Another Form of Relief, it’s pretty obvious where my tastes lie. Indie guitar pop makes up the vast majority of what I listen to, and thus it’s what is featured most commonly on here. As such, it may seem pretty unusual for me to feature a French singer-songwriter who makes mellow acoustic songs. But that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

Orouni is from Paris, and he’s certainly French. Although he sings in English, his songs scream French, mostly because of his strong accent, which works in the favour of these songs. These aren’t the most complex songs in the world, mostly simple acoustic arrangements, but this allows Orouni’s voice to shine clearly through. This is good news given just how strong and unique his voice is. He sings in the intimate style of someone who is singing to you and you alone. The result of this is that the songs grab you and don’t let go.

Given this intimacy, it doesn’t really matter that the songs don’t always make perfect sense, as is the case with ‘The Lamppost’. Lyrically it’s abstract to the point that it barely holds together, but the vocal style makes this entirely irrelevant. Orouni could probably recite sections of the phone book and still manage to make it sound good. The other song, ‘Experiments On The Threshold Of Pain’ is more accessible, an attack on modern life (”We need your age, your sex, your name / Or just your email, that’s the same”) detailing a medical experiment. The key hook here is that Orouni jumps the narrative voice from those conducting the experiment to the test subject and back to the experimenters again. It’s a gimmick, but one that works incredibly well given the subject matter.

You can find a lot more songs by Orouni on his website, along with his blog, although this is largely in French, making it a little tricky for someone like me to keep up. He will hopefully be recording a debut release in the near future.

MP3 Orouni - The Lamppost
MP3 Orouni - Experiments On The Threshold Of Pain

Orouni: Website || Myspace

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