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Anadol & Marie Klock

Manivelles

Following their 2024 debut 'La grande accumulation', Anadol (Gözen Atila) and Marie Klock return with 'Manivelles'.

Hailed by The Quietus as a duo that pushes each other to ‘greater heights of oddness,’ the pair produces an undefinable mix of folk, kraut, and pop nested inside expansive organ-based arrangements. The album’s nine tracks emerged from intensive improvisations in Paris and Istanbul, brought to life with an odd mix of tools: from Prophet-5 and Jupiter-6 synths to mechanical Pianet clatter and even a salad spinner repurposed as a drone.

Klock’s French lyrics navigate the miniature and the cosmic, exploring the small tragedies of everyday life - botched holiday gatherings, lingering heartbreak or the absence of a loved one. Born from a moment of catharsis during an Istanbul earthquake that ended a period of writer’s block, the record draws its material from lived experience and a lasting friendship.

Its title, 'Manivelles' - meaning ‘cranks’ - hints at the musical partners’ creative penchant for generating songs through friction and playful contradictions. From the shouted pastiche of ‘Symposium’ to the sparse synth pulses of ‘Une grande tragédie polonaise’, it’s an album with a wonderfully wonky heart that sounds like faint signals from a beautifully failing transmitter.


TRACK LISTING

1. La Supériorité Du Nombre
2. Magnitude 6.3
3. Manivelles
4. Rentrer A La Maison
5. Henri
6. Les Histoires Véritables De Gözen Et Marie
7. Une Grande Tragédie Polonaise
8. Sans Toi
9. Symposium

Iko Cherie

Soft Centre

Soft Centre is the new album by Iko Chérie, the solo project of French-born, London-based multiinstrumentalist Marie Merlet. She blends dub-inflected textures, pop tinged vocals, reverb drenched guitars, Casio drones, and warm experimental noises – creating her own intimate, fragile sound.

Self-produced and largely performed by Merlet, the album grew from an introspective process, with many sketches recorded in transit between tours. The result is a deeply personal work, balancing light and dark in a Lynchian dream-pop haze. Songs such as We Smoke That Peace Pipe and Bilbao shimmer between vulnerability and resilience, while the single Ghosted Ghosters of the Holy G captures the immediacy of a one-take dub bass. Some pieces retain the quality of improvised snapshots (Intelligent Women, Half a Metaphor) while others reveal her meticulous production process and songwriting craft (Tears in the Sea, Luciférine). Merlet defines Soft Centre as alive in radical tenderness, unguarded, open, and vivid.

Influenced by Clarice Lispector’s prose, Diane di Prima’s poetry and Rachel Carson’s environmentalist writing, as well as Marie’s fascination with a vintage Roland Space Echo, the album is an invitation to connection that she describes as “... hopefully a meditation into healing.”

A versatile musician trained in classical piano, jazz, and electroacoustic composition, Merlet has long moved between different worlds of sound. She has worked with Laetitia Sadier in Monade, performs with Gina Birch (The Raincoats), Malphino, Yama Warashi, and several other groups. She recently appeared as guest singer on the latest Stereolab album. Her debut solo LP, Dreaming On (Elefant Records, 2015), revealed her singular melodic instincts; with Soft Centre she ventures further inward, shaping her own distinctive voice in experimental pop.

TRACK LISTING

A1 Soft Centre
A2 Luciférine
A3 California Rosemary
A4 Ghosted Ghosters Of The Holy G
A5 We Smoke That Peace Pipe
B1 Bilbao
B2 La Luna
B3 Tears In The Sea
B4 Intelligent Women
B5 Half A Metaphor

Iko Cherie

Ghosted Ghosters Of The Holy G

Pingipung proudly introduces Iko Chérie, the experimental pop project of French multi-instrumentalist Marie Merlet. The 7" single "Ghosted Ghosters of the Holy G" offers a first glimpse into her forthcoming LP, Soft Centre (Nov 2025) - a hypnotic blend of dub-infused songwriting and blissful noise. On the flipside, French electro-dub visionaries Froid Dub unravel the track into a shadowy, slow-motion version, with a solid sub-bass. Beyond Iko Chérie, Marie Merlet tours globally and records with Gina Birch (The Raincoats) and is the guitarist in psychedelic cumbia outfit Malphino.


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