Jacques Satre - 10 Ans Déjà (2025)

"10 ans déjà" ; a decade has passed, and still, Jacques Satre roams the many psychedelic landscapes of dance music with the patience of a craftsman and the soul of a storyteller. To mark this milestone in his career, the producer unveils an album that feels both ambitious and deeply intimate, an intricate tapestry where acoustic instruments are blended with finely-tuned production, and where fleeting internet references intertwine with borderless musical lore.

The journey opens with « Cockroach Dub », built around a vocoded scat voice sampled from an obscure dancing cockroach meme, setting the tone. Throughout the album, we encounter a variety of vocal sources : samples from the internet (Tiktok puppet Estelle on « Stream of Abundance »), high-fantasy blockbusters (Elven mage Galadriel on « Character Select .Zic »), vocals recorded and manipulated by Jacques himself or by fellow Stéphanois Barranco Doremi on « Or Est Ensi ».

Although the album as a whole is driven by a downtempo rhythm with EBM and psydub influences, featuring heavy kicks, snare ghost notes and dub sirens ; the lush arrangements stretch the tracks in many musical directions.

On « Jacques et la Rico Magique », he casts himself as the protagonist of a surreal british fable, in the spirit of Andrew Weatherall. Acid basslines bubble like enchanted potions, while guitars, sun-scorched and windswept, conjure mirages of distant, desert horizons.
As the reverie draws to a close, the electric charge softens. On « The Ghost », the guitar returns stripped and tender, its acoustic drenched in phaser mist. The result is a cathartic, psychedelic slow dance, closing the album on a note of emotional release.

In this Fourth World universe, Jacques also draws from Celtic music. His scatted flute dances over slapped bass on the sci-fi pastoral « Drums of the Flat Menhir ». Elsewhere, on « Character Select .zic », it transforms into MIDI, galloping through fantastical realms. Finally on « Corrywreckan Stream », the bow of the Irish fiddle crosses paths with Indian tablas, summoning a swirling Goa-tinged trance.

As we listen to this album, which willingly flirts with psychedelic music, we realize that 80 BPM has rarely felt so alive beneath the feet. Jacques reminds us that dance music can be intricate, rich in arrangements and references, yet remain accessible, playful and irresistibly groovy.