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En Attendant Ana announce UK tour in February & share “Do You Understand?” .. New album, Juillet, due 24th January on Trouble in Mind

December 13, 2019
Press photo – credit Chloé Lecarpentier

EN ATTENDANT ANA

Announce UK Tour in February
inc. London’s The Islington on 15th February

New album, Juillet due 24th January on Trouble in Mind

Share new single, “Do You Understand?”

With the release of Juillet on 24th January, Parisian quintet En Attendant Ana make good on the promise of their album Lost & Found (2018, Trouble In Mind), diligently crafting a set of ten songs that shimmer, glide and sway with a sophistication only hinted at by their debut.

Today, the band announce UK live dates in February, along with new single “Do You Understand?”. The tour will include a headline show at London’s The Islington on 15th, full dates are as follows..

Saturday 8th February – Portsmouth, Acapulco (tickets)
Sunday 9th February – Bristol, The Lanes (free show)
Monday 10th February – Edinburgh, Sneaky Pete’s
Tuesday 11th February – Glasgow, The Flying Duck
Wednesday 12th February – Nottingham, Rough Trade (tickets)
Friday 14th February – Sheffield, Delicious Clam Records
Saturday 15th February – London, The Islington (tickets)

Following on from “Words”, En Attendant Ana’s new single “Do You Understand?” is one of the first songs the band entirely composed with new guitar player, Maxence.

They say, “As opposed to “Words” that we started to work on quite rapidly but which took so much time to finish, “Do You Understand?” was finalised in a short period of time. The lyrics came easily as well. Really fast, like automatic writing. It’s also the first of our new songs that we played live. We were nervous about people’s reaction. It’s a song about friendship and the unexpected reassuring shoulders you can find when you need them. The importance of your surrounding when the times get rough. These kind of cheesy but important things.” Listen below…

Recorded by Vincent Hivert and Alexis Fugain over the course of one week at Studio Claudio, an isolated studio in rural France, Juillet is the sound of a band reshaping itself, adapting to numerous transitions both within the band (Juillet is the first recording with current guitarist Maxence Tomasso) and in life.

Primary lyricist & front person Margaux Bouchaudon says “I tend to consider it as a journey towards acceptation of losses (would they be friends, lovers or dreams through death, departure or disillusion…) but also towards self respect and independence.”

Indeed many of the songs on Juillet feel hopeful, despite their melancholic tone, lacing a lilting melody or triumphant trumpet swell (courtesy of multi-instrumentalist Camille Fréchou) or charging guitar riffs from Tomasso or Bouchaudon. Famed French engineer Dominique Blanc-Francard mastered the whole affair with a deft hand, coaxing the subtleties of the mix without sacrificing its sonic whallop.

The band listened to a wider range of music whilst writing ‘Juillet’, from indie pop to post punk, shoegaze, dream pop, and ambient, namechecking the likes of Electrelane, Women, Cocteau Twins, The Organ, Crack Cloud, Stereolab, Cate Le Bon, Suicide and The Breeders, pairing their taut guitar lines with softer brass flourishes.

Whereas the tunes on Lost and Found felt wild & reckless, the songs on Juillet feel focused, composed by the band over six months, working a much as possible on arrangements, structure to create a set of songs that feel bonded together by the magnetic pull of each other; each shines on their own, but viewed as a whole, they dazzle.

Songs like “Do You Understand?” and the first single “Words” point toward a new frontier for the group, effortlessly sharpening their razor-sharp hooks to such a fine point, you almost don’t realize their complexity. Elsewhere, songs like “Flesh or Blood” and opener “Down The Hill” revel in the push/pull dynamics they teased at on Lost and Found while earworm tunes like “In / Out”s poetic lyrics bounce atop a toe-tapping pulse (courtesy of rhythm section of bassist Antoine Vaugelade & drummer Adrien Pollin).

Finally, songs like “From My Bruise To An Island” and the sparse “When It Burns” bridge a confessional narrative atop an amorphous ambient float. They feel important, and hint at an exciting future for a band letting go of its past and entrusting fate with its future. “Juillet” is the French word for July – a month representing the transition from spring to summer, & in the band’s own words “Juillet” is “a symbol of the end of something and the beginning of an other one…””

Preorder:
Trouble in Mind: http://www.troubleinmindrecs.com/en-attendant-ana-juillet-limited-metallic-gold-vinyl-version/

Bandcamp: https://troubleinmindrecords.bandcamp.com/album/juillet
 

Tracklisting:
1. Down The Hill
2. Do You Understand?
3. Somewhere And Somehow
4. In / Out
5. From My Bruise To An Island
6. Flesh Or Blood
7. Enter My Body (Lilith)
8. Words
9. When It Burns
10. The Light That Slept Inside

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