Created and led by a mysterious and enigmatic, French-born multi-instrumentalist, producer and composer, only known and Sandy, Kwoon sees the French-born artist specializing in a dreamy take on post-rock and prog rock that’s seemingly inspired by Sigur Ros, Explosions in the Sky, and Pink Floyd through the release of three albums: 2006’s Tales & Dreams, 2009’s When the flowers were singing and 2011’s The Guillotine Show.
Over the past couple of years, the JOVM mainstay shared a series of live performances filmed in some gorgeous and mesmerizing locations, including a cliff on the island of Lanzarote, the Tévennec Lighthouse, on the stormy Breton sea, where he performed an early version of “King of Sea,” and Quiberon Airport, in Quiberon, France for the slow-burning and shoegazey “Stratofear.”
The studio version of “King of Sea” continued a run of slow-burning and cinematic material, while featuring an orchestral arrangement of thinking and looping piano, dramatic drumming and percussions, soaring backing vocals and textured, swirling guitars drenched in delay and reverb pedal paired with Sandy’s David Gilmour-like delivery. Sonically, the song seems to nod at The Wall-era Pink Floyd (think of “The Trial”) or A Momentary Lapse of Reason-era Pink Floyd.
Written while staying in the Tévennec Lighthouse in Finistere, France on the Breton Sea, the song is inspired by the lighthouse, which has a lengthy and terrifying reputation among sailors for strange and terrible phenomena that have happened around the site. In fact, many sailors have referred to the lighthouse and island as “the gateway to hell.”
His latest single, “White Angels” is a slow-burning and cinematic track that continues a lengthy run of post rock material that seemingly nods at Sigur Ros, Collapse Under the Empire, and in the case of the new track, a bit of Kid A-era Radiohead but with swirling, shoegazer like guitar textures. The track’s arrangement serves as a lush and dreamy bed for Sandy’s dreamy, Thom Yorke-meets-David Gilmour-like delivery. The song manages to evoke a heavenward yearning and a sense of awe and smallness in a vast, indifferent cosmos.
“‘White Angels’ is the story of a man, who as a fan of astronomy and spacemen, looks up to the night sky to see white lights shinning in the distant cosmos,” Sandy explains. “What are these white lights that are there every night?”
The accompanying live footage was shot at Galaxy Amneville.
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