Biography:

SUBCUTANEOUS LAYERS (release 2019, March, 1)
7th album by WATINE

Two years after her beautifully sculpted album Atalaye, Catherine Watine comes back with a personal and ambitious new project. Her relentless efforts to shake up her Modus Operanti in each new project is at the heart of this new album. Catherine has developed this musical project relying on her own intuition, regenerating in a new frame of mind. Shifting to French language and acoustic music, she surprises us with this new album. It has at its core an instrumental musical form incorporating an electronic edge married to a contemplative side. Catherine is moving forward from the succinct Pop format of her earlier work.
From the 1st track of this album, the musical texture, liberated from cultural analogy, opens up showing expansive and focussed composition. The obsessive repetitiveness heard is closer to the Steve Reich School of thought, constantly referencing 70’s masterminds like Tangerine Dream, surely exalted company to keep. Catherine Watine is not afraid to apply layer upon layer akin to an internal earthquake in order to free herself from a being confined within this format. The possible resemblance to her references shifts with the obvious absorption of other influences and the will to build her own new language.
Catherine Watine submerges us into the origin of concrete music and the acousmatic form, flowing between the work of Luigi Russolo and Pierre Shaeffer with a mix of electronic German music from the 70’s. However, the essential power of this wide-ranging music is not to freeze the moment. Not one minute relates to the previous one, building a 10 minutes long track reveals a rich and surprising ambiance. The piece often starts softly evolving into music of remarkable power finding the strings rising towards the open sky to dazzle you on high.
Catherine Watine dismisses nothing, her classicism through a variety of original orchestration and also her taste in Pop music reminds ourselves that catchy music can be enjoyed in the simplest form like the obsessive line springing up in a middle of her piece “Jetlag”, abundant and asymmetrical through fragile delicacy. The influence of her recollection of her early days in immersing herself in different levels of electronic music sets up the mazy patterns found within the music. The gritty beat loop of “raining bees” reminds us of Bjork’s finest era, whilst African chants emanate as if propelled on arid land. In the middle of this sensory adventure we meet suspended and distant silences where the sounds of urban life, church bell, train passing or abstruse dialogue are as muffled as the street noise. Further on the groove bashes around and an offbeat bass guitar drives forward. Once immersed in this new album you will lose track of logical structure and your view of common sense. Catherine Watine plays continually moving from cold to hot without any sign of the lukewarm. She made the artistic choice of leaving the ordinary to the side, separating the chaff from the wheat, to whoever pays attention and find themselves grabbing and holding onto the numerous threads contained. Overall the instrumental passages including poetic and imaginary lyrics where reality merges with the delight of word play. Her voice infuses words with additional colours in this rich music. Moving away from rhymes or singing formats, Catherine Watine allows herself the luxury of being herself with a modernity that is as distant from the pressures of being radio friendly. The journey taken by the listener in this album could break down into diverse paths like classic masterpiece or Canadian Post Rock, but her music is so unique it will be impossible to label it. Apart from the actual musical scene, this album tips it’s hat to diverse artists from Gabriel Faure to The Bristol movement noting a progressive rock allusion and obsessive electronic repetitions. You will get on board with this urban post-pop album which will set you on a journey where you will find it challenging to go ashore and explore this unchartered soundscape. This is indeed a golden opportunity to treat yourself to an absolute change of musical scenery if the unknown doesn’t alarm you and the taste of discovery inspires you, this is an album for you.