Magnétophonique - Une Cartographie Idéale (2018)

In 2011 Charles Belpois and Baptiste Martin became roommates in Dijon, France and began making music, both together and alone. The solo projects they birthed – Magnétophonique and Les Halles, respectively – share a similarly introspective mood, vignettes of emotive, smeared ambience conjured from private communions with tape hiss, loop stations, and bleached keys. The label they founded, Carpi, issued many of their early recordings (typically in editions of less than 50) but ceased operations in 2015, with Belpois’ last release coming out on defunct Mexican imprint Dept Tapes the year before.

Une Cartographie Idéale collects 12 gems from the Magnétophonique catalog to map a nuanced portrait of his evocative mirage exotica, wavering between bliss and abandonment, paradise and prison. Isolation and island fantasy intermingle in bewitching delirium, the sound of waves and tropical birds refracted through heat-stroked haze while melting cassettes unspool refracted melodies into lost horizons. Escape is heaven – until it isn’t; in the artist’s words: “You’ll never belong here.”