CARRÉ · Freeform

If you’ve been following this site over the past few months, you may know that Carré is a rapidly rising Los Angeles-based indie electro rock act featuring:

• Julien Boyé (drums, percussion, vocals): Boyé has had stints as a touring member of Nouvelle Vague and James Supercave. Additionally, he has a solo recording act Acoustic Resistance, in which he employs rare instruments, which he has collected from all over the world.
• Jules de Gasperis (drums, vocals, synths, production and mixing): de Gasperis is a Paris-born, Los Angeles-based studio owner. Growing up in Paris, he sharpened his knowledge of synthesizers, looping machines and other electronics around the same time that Justice, Soulwax and Ed Banger Records exploded into the mainstream.
• Kevin Baudouin (guitar, vocals, synth, production): Baudouin has lived in Los Angeles the longest of the trio — 10 years — and he has played with a number of psych rock acts, developing a uniquely edgy approach to guitar, influenced by Nels Cline, Jonny Greenwood and Marc Ribot.

Deriving their name for the French word for “square,” “playing tight” and “on point,” the Los Angeles-based trio formed last year — and as the band’s Jules de Gasperis explains in press notes, “The making of our band started with this whole idea of having two drummers perform together. It felt like a statement. We always wanted to keep people moving and tend to focus on the beats first when we write.”

The act specializes in a French electronica-inspired sound that blends aggressive, dark and chaotic elements with hypnotic drum loops. Thematically, their work generally touches upon conception, abstraction and distortion of reality through a surrealistic outlook of our world. Visually, their work features geometric shapes and patterns.

The French-born, Los Angeles-based trio’s self-titled EP is slated for a Friday release through Nomad Eel Records — and so far, I’ve written about “This is not a band,” a propulsive club banger that brought Factory Floor, The Rapture, Primal Scream, Kasabian, The Chemical Brothers and The Crystal Method to mind—  and the Ministry and early Nine Inch Nails-like “Urgency.” “Freeform,” the EP’s latest single is decidedly free flowing and improvised jam centered around glistening synth arpeggios, shimmering blasts of guitar an insistent motorik groove, hi-hat led four-on-the-floor, ethereal samples and vocodered vocals. And while the song sonically brings Uncanny Valley-era Midnight Juggernauts, Tour de France-era Kraftwerk and Primal Scream to mind, it also reveals an incredibly tight band of musicians, who are pushing each other and their work into new and trippy dimensions.