Underexposed: Haiku Salut - Tricolore
- Written by Joe Watson
Haiku Salut may not be the name on everyone’s lips but one thing is for sure, if this album somehow manages to get your time of day, it’s not likely something you will forget in a hurry. Rather than try to pin a style of six or seven hyphenated genre abbreviations to the Derbyshire trio, we will do our best to break down the intricacies of what their instrumental debut album Tricolore is all about - not particularly easy to do with something that is to an extent musically pretty unique to the UK in general.
Despite their uniqueness though, most of their influences are clearly recognisable albeit with each given its own twist. If you can imagine Benoît Charest doing a mash up with Ametsub, or Yann Tiersen’s Amelie OST being remixed with the earlier work of Mum, then you're part way to understanding what Haiku Salut are about.
Their most intriguing influence though is that of Haruki Murakami - arguably the most experimental Japanese novelist to hit our shelves. Like his work, Tricolore inhabits the liminal zone between realism and fable, like Salvador Dali painting by music, the result is the same – surrealistic compositions by incredibly talented, classically trained artists. This is what transforms it from just pitching various musical styles together and hoping that it works; it’s what defines their album as true art and makes it work.
We’re in danger of sounding too pretentious here though which is something the album is not. Nor is it particularly complex to the ear. That said; don’t ask us what instruments or even non-instruments we hear in the short prelude ‘Say It’, because we don’t know. Second up on the album though is much more recognisable in what their using as the intro takes elegant form with a classically plucked Spanish guitar, a familiar Parisian street accordion motif and intricate piano – which alternate as starting points throughout the album. For the moment you could be forgiven for thinking that someone had slipped you a duff track listing as you glance down to find it titled ‘Sounds Like There’s A Pacman Crunching Away At Your Heart’. Gemma, Louise and Sophie’s intentions don’t take long to become very clear though. Pacman does indeed sonically pull up a seat beside the trio and soon the elegant form is accompanied with layers of idiosyncratic electronic loops and samples that are alternately quirky and beautiful.
From here on it’s almost like the album grows in confidence. A rake of imagery and musical ideas come thick and fast. On ‘Leaf Stricken’ there are crescendos retreating into softer, timid moments only to build up again, whilst tracks like ‘Los Elefantes’ and ‘Rustic Sense Of Migration’ syringe moving moments of melancholia with happiness.
‘Lonesome George (Or Well, There’s No-One Like)’ is like all their musical idioms – with the accordion at the forefront - packed into one happy-go-lucky track which comes off like a French waltz that you would find at a wedding or circus. The classical minimalist undertones that are sometimes masked on other tracks come to the fore on ‘Watanabe’ and ‘Six Impossible Things’ which are just a couple of the many intimate charms that Tricolore boasts.
Whilst Haiku Salut may not win any awards for creating the best album of the year, this work is certainly one of the most refreshing and surprising of the year. With an impressive command of idiom and subtlety it has all the attributes to lift and melt the heart in equal proportions and whilst it’s instantaneously enjoyable, there are many contours to be explored on repeated listens. So there you go, not Baroque/Pop/Folktronic/Neo-Classical/Accordion-Disco/Something-Or-Other, just a seemingly endless plethora of stark and lovely instruments splattered with some electronics, minimalist technique and often in the same charming cue.
Tricolore is out now and available from amazon