A Grand Love Story cover

A Grand Love Story

Released

The first album from French producer, DJ and electronic musician Jean Yves Prieur is a charming collection of dense, fuzzy, trip hop and electronic sample-based tracks that occasionally tip over into gentle folkish, lounge and easy listening territory in a most agreeable fashion. Prieur’s take on the trip hop template included the requisite sluggish tempos, crusty drum breaks and sleepy, slightly narcotic mood, but he dispensed with its smoked-out paranoia, revelling instead in a cheery, sunny disposition. The ghosts of pop, lounge and acoustic folk are contained here, and although it’s sometimes difficult to discern the original flavour of the overlapping sampled parts he’s assembled, there’s a soft and familiar easy-listening musicality to the whole album. Not all trip hop is calming or soporific because it’s stoner music, some of it, like A Grand Love Story, is calming and soporific because of its lullaby qualities: there’s a warm heart at the centre of this album.

Harold Heath

Recommended by

Suggestions
Jump Leads cover

Jump Leads

Fila Brazillia
Re:member cover

Re:member

Ólafur Arnalds
Egzotik cover

Egzotik

Ali Kuru
Good 4 We cover

Good 4 We

D-Influence
Death of the Revolution cover

Death of the Revolution

Flowering Inferno, Quantic
Foxbase Alpha cover

Foxbase Alpha

Saint Etienne
Carboot Soul cover

Carboot Soul

Nightmares on Wax
Destiny Waiving cover

Destiny Waiving

Ulrich Schnauss, Mark Peters
Snatch cover

Snatch

Howie B