Half a Band - Spare Ones (2019)

Half a Band is a music project of french multi-instrumentalist Olivier Bonneau. The music released through this project reflects Olivier’s taste for cinematic rock, often atmospheric, with lots of keyboards, delayed guitars and odd signatures drumming. The music is hard to classify, but can be connected to post-progressive rock.

Compositions alternate short straightforward pop songs and more complex and adventurous pieces where a large place is left to instrumental music.

The few lyrics found often reflect Olivier’s concern for the environnemental state of the planet we live in, and the perspective that the human race is only something very small and fragile at the scale of the whole universe. Some other songs are more influenced by road movies, landscapes, open spaces and derelict industrial yards.

In terms of instrumentation, Olivier plays and records mostly everything himself, the music refects his affection for vintage keyboards, with the extensive use of analog synths and old school sounds like organs, mellotrons, string machines or electric pianos ; atmospheric electric guitars with effects like phaser, leslie cabinets, big muff distorsions, with layers of analog delays ; the use of bass pedals along melodic basslines ; and jazz rock drumming with a warm natural sound.