Review: Les Rhinocéros - Self-titled

Words // Sarah V.

Les Rhinocéros' self-titled debut album was the first release in indie label Tzadik's new Spotlight Series - a series of albums meant to throw a spotlight on some young up-and-coming musicians who are making adventurous new music. Les Rhinos fit the bill perfectly: a group of teenagers who are making some of the most creative music you'll hear this year. Their exact genre is difficult to pin down, with equal parts rock, jazz, and ambient with bits of world music, noise, and even a little circus music sneaking in. The instrumentation is unusually diverse, incorporating your standard rock-band stuff (guitar, piano, drums, bass) as well as strings, brass, noise-making toys, loops and samples.

The album starts off quietly, with birds chirping and a calm recitation of a somewhat surreal poem involving rhinoceroses. The rest of the album is mostly instrumental, about equally divided between fun, upbeat tracks and more reflective pieces that have more of a focus on  ambience and texture. With these slow, dreamy interludes, Les Rhinocéros is an album that wants to be listened to as a whole album, all tracks in order - it just doesn't sound right if you put it on shuffle mode. And yet, this is a music blog, so I'll take one out of context for you anyway:

If you're interested in picking up their album, I recommend checking out their Kickstarter page. For about the same amount of money as you'd spend elsewhere, you can get a digital or physical copy of the album and help them pay the initial costs for their first European tour.