Tag: AURUS AWOL

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: AURUS Shares Breathtakingly Beautiful “Strange Stone”

Bastien Picot is a rising Réunion Island-born singer/songwriter, producer and creative mastermind behind AURUS, a rising electronic music project that specializes in an orchestral-leaning take on electro pop that has drawn comparisons to Nakhane, Woodkid, Peter Gabriel and a list of others. 

With the release of 2019’s “The Abettors,” which featured Sandra Nkaké, Picot exploded into the French scene: The track thematically raised awareness of a system that exploited and took the living for granted. He started off 2020 with sets at  MaMA Festival and Bars en Trans Festival, opening for Vendredi sur Mer at L’Olympia, and being named a “revelation” of Chantier des Francos. 

2020 also saw the release of Picot’s AURUS self-titled debut EP. Building upon that momentum, 2021’s full-length debut, Chimera was conceived, written and recorded between Réunion Island and Paris. The album’s material is an intuitive and tribal journey in which, what may seem irreconcilable meets and merges. Sonically, the songs mesh brooding atmospheric textures, tribal beats, military rhythms, trance, pop ballads and more, while featuring lyrics sung in English and Reunion Island Creole.

I wrote about three of Chimera‘s singles:

  • The brooding and cinematic, Security-era Peter Gabriel-like “Momentum” The yearning, Amnesiac-era Radiohead meets contemporary alt pop-like “AWOL.”

  • “Horus,” a brooding yet mesmerizing and difficult to pigeonhole song built around Picot’s unerring knack for infectious hooks paired with devastatingly earnest lyricism

“Strange Stone” is the first bit of original material from the Reunion Island-born artist since Chimera, and it’s a decided sonic departure from his previously released work. Built around strummed acoustic guitar and atmospheric electronic textures, paired with Picot’s yearning falsetto, “Strange Stone” is a breathtakingly gorgeous song that stopped me in my tracks when I first heard it.

Much like his previously released work, the new single is rooted in deeply personal experience: Feeling as though his heart was slowly calcifying and on the verge of giving up, Picot returned to Reunion Island. The trip was profoundly restorative: He found the strength to awaken his own beating heart. “Strange Stone” is a tribute to “the strange, magical energy that pulsates through both AURUS and his homeland; a journey of self-discovery and inner healing where the strangest stones can awaken the deepest passions.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: AURUS Returns with a Mesmerizing New Single

Bastien Picot is a rising Réunion Island-born, Paris-based singer/songwriter, producer and creative mastermind behind AURUS, a rising electronic music project that specializes in an orchestral-leaning take on electro pop that has drawn comparisons to Nakhane, Woodkid, Peter Gabriel and others. 

With the release of 2019’s “The Abettors,” which featured Sandra Nkaké, Picot exploded into the French scene: The track thematically raised awareness of a system that exploited and took the living for granted. He started off last year with sets at  MaMA Festival and Bars en Trans Festival, opening for Vendredi sur Mer at L’Olympia, and being named a “revelation” of Chantier des Francos. 

Building upon that momentum, the rising French artist released his self-titled debut EP last June. Since the release of the EP, Picot has been busy: he recently released his highly-anticipated full-length debut Chimera, which feature the brooding and cinematic, Security-era Peter Gabriel-like “Momentum,” and the yearning, Amnesiac-era Radiohead meets contemporary alt pop-like “AWOL.” Conceived, written and recorded between Reunion Island and Paris, the album is an intuitive and tribal journey, in which what may seem irreconcilable meets and merges: Sonically, the songs mesh brooding atmospherics, tribal bets, military rhythms, and elements of trance, pop ballads and more with lyrics sung in English and Reunion Island Creole.

Chimera‘s latest single “Horus” is a mesmerizing, brooding and difficult to pigeon hole song: Featuring lyrics sung in alternating burst of English and Reunion Island Creole, the track begins with a cinematic opening organ and mournful yet regal horns before morphing into stunning electro pop centered around yearning church-like vocals, trippy yet propulsive polyrhythm, atmospheric synths and Picot’s unerring knack for infectious hooks paired with devastatingly earnest songwriting within material that’s simultaneously challenging and accessible.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: AURUS Returns with a Delicate Ode to Vulnerability

Bastien Picot is a French singer/songwriter, producer and creative mastermind behind AURUS, a rising electronic music project that specializes in an orchestral-leaning take on electro pop that has drawn comparisons to Nakhane, Woodkid, Peter Gabriel and others. 

which featured Sandra Nkaké thematically raised awareness of a system that exploited and took the living for granted. Picot followed “The Abettors” with a massive 2020 that included sets at that year’s MaMA Festival and Bars en Trans Festival, opening for Vendredi sur Mer at L’Olympia, and being named a “revelation” of Chantier des Francos.

n a rapidly growing profile across the Francophone world, Picot released his AURUS self-titled debut last June. Last month, I wrote about EP single “Momentum,” a brooding and cinematic track featuring skittering and percussive beats, atmospheric horns and synths and Picot’s plaintive vocals. The end result is a song that sonically meshes house music and contemporary electronic production with a bit of Security-era Peter Gabriel. 

Absent Without Leave.” The collaboration with Mathéo Técher continues a run of incredibly cinematic material. Centered around twinkling piano, buzzing bass synths, Picot’s achingly tender vocals, thumping beats and a rousingly anthemic hook “AWOL” — to my ears, at least — reminds me a bit of a mix of Amnesiac-era Radiohead and contemporary alt pop while expressing a deeply vulnerable yearning. Interestingly, as Picot explains he and his collaborator Técher use the expression in a metaphorical sense, to illustrate what they believe is the desertion of our being, as though being barricaded behind shells that we strive to build to camouflage our wounds, cracks and scars. “‘AWOL’ is an Ode to fragility, to the beauty of our imperfections, a fight against the military discipline that we inflict on ourselves to smooth the roughness of our contours but also a call to courage.”

The recently released video for “AWOL” continues a run of mesmerizing visuals: This time two masked dancers expressively dancing — eventually tearing off figurative armor off each other and themselves, exposing their delicate and glowing insides.