Saycet - Layers (2021)

As if going against the grain in our productivity-obsessed era, Pierre Lefeuvre has always taken his time in between two albums with his Saycet project, maturing his approach and inspiring his collaborations and scoring projects in the process.
As such, fourth album Layers promises to be his most accomplished outing – a free flowing, timeless work.
“This record is the result of six years of work. The compositions were nourished mainly by the desire to return to my electronica roots while maintain a certain modernity and avoiding the pitfalls of nostalgia,” says the Parisian musician.
Split between melodic ambient piano pieces and powerful club hymns, Layers successfully develops a narration without imposing itself on the listener, invoking images and moods along the way. An open window on Lefeuvre’s psyche, it expresses a moving humanity on titles such as Lightyear and Murmuration, the latter of which featuring Joseph Schiano di Lombo. Originally enlisted as an arranger, the French musician, poet and illustrator wove himself so naturally into the Layers universe that he ended up co-writing the full length’s sole collaboration.
But if one track could condense the project’s creative intentions, it would be Malaparte. The equal-parts kinetic and fragile piece wander between techno rhythms, synthetic waves and pop melodies with a powerful, natural gracefulness.
The title track is another highlight. The central piece of the score Lefeuvre composed for Noémie Merlant’s Cannes-selected debut feature Mi Iubita, it is the perfect juncture between his albums as Saycet and his work as a film composer: “I chose a very graphic album title. To me, Layers echoes the way I compose and produce by stratifying elements on top of each other,” he explains.
The collection is indeed distinguished by an aesthetic coherence that can be found both in its musical approach and its graphic design (by Ludovic Houplain of H5), and in a new live setup that plays with transparency and superposition effects to create a universe that cradles the listener in a suspended moment.
Far from the big A/V machines and the vain pyrotechnic effects, Layers is a project that relies above all on melody and a sense of arrangements developed by Saycet since the beginning of the 2000s, and refined by his work as a composer of film music.
Heralded by tracks Mother, Father and a reinterpretation of Solaris commissioned by the Château de Versailles, this new album is the occasion for Saycet to claim his creative stake in the French musical landscape, with one foot in its artistic history and one eye fixed towards a radiant future.