SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: PENELOPE ANTENA – JAMES AND JUNE

PENELOPE ANTENA
JAMES AND JUNE
YOUNGBLOODS & PARAPENTE MUSIC

If the excellence of James And June, the new album by Penelope Antena, comes as a bit of a shock to the uninitiated, it shouldn’t be.

First of all, Antena is the granddaughter of pianist and jazz-rock pioneer Marc Moulin (Placebo, Telex) and daughter of electro-samba icon Isabelle Powaga (Antena). Add to that the quality of her previous two releases.

Yet, James And June moves her a quite a few steps forward, with her family musical background serving just as a base for her vocal and electro experimentation, stretching her songs and melodies as far as they can go. In some ways, the voice manipulation she uses takes the ones of James Blake even further, but without sacrificing her elongated, languid melody lines, using the spaces between the notes as the notes themselves, in some ways recalling the elusive Lewis and his two strange but beautiful albums.

But Penelope Antena is a unique artist herself and James And June should feature quite high on the end of the year lists.

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