Kumi, Tamara and Zoé are back, for a ride on the back of a sheep! Achieved in the same breath of concerts all around the world (Taiwan, Singapore, Amsterdam, Montreal, Barcelona...), Moutain Mouton could very well be the first actual album of a trio with many ideas, after the cut-and-paste miniatures their debut Il fait tout gris. More complex, denser, less fragile and clumsy, this new opus crafted with six hands is somewhat apparent to a massive pop block, a majestic delivery full of ideas and cravings of melodies, arrangements, words and love. Recorded by F.Lor, with (almost) no overdub, the album is delivered in a crude and collective way, just like the concerts of the trio, yet doesn’t go round any labyrinthine folly, doesn’t elude any ambitious digression. A good half of the album is backed up by an energetic drum kit, strings unravel at every corner, trumpets multiply ahoy, while melodic immediacy never gets lost in the way.
The girls in the band like to tag their music as “chamber neo prog”, yet it’s that big old pop music, that of The Ronettes, of Robert Wyatt, of the Beatles, that ceaselessly claims its rights: a few songs, « Vanilla Girl » or say, « Inflammable », even have airs of hit-singles, of here and now. You can find all the little things that make Konki-songs so peculiar, the heart-breaking pop hooks, the little discordances that pervert their gentleness, the baroque inclinations, the foliated choir arrangements, except everything is greater, more beautiful. Eventually, it’s that good old indie rock which comes back with fury and harsher blows – and Moutain Mouton, that was mastered by indie rock guru Kramer, is an indie rock record for many more reasons. Once upon a time, there were dreams and carnivorous nightmares, once upon a time there was a sheep that lived up in the moutain, and who found the green pastures so beautiful that he turned into a green sheep, just like a chameleon: Moutain Mouton is The Konki Duet’s second album.