Fievel Is Glauque’s sprawling new eclectic French track “Haut Contre Bas"

Now Ma Clément’s French-tinged vocals make up half of the odd-pop project that is Fievel Is Glauque, with Zach Phillips as the band’s leader (They’re also joined by a revolving door of collaborators). Since this duo are spread across the globe, they can only meet a few times a year for intense writing sessions. Phillips thinks up jazzy and eclectic arrangements until addictive sonic collages form. Clément crafts the lyrics, and much like the Cocteau Twins, she often enjoys the sound of words rather than their meaning. The unique fusion creates songs that evoke palpable feelings of shock and wonder.

Fievel Is Glaque has been active since its inception in 2018, but has been flying relatively under the radar. The first time I saw the group perform last year, I only knew them as a favorite of my brother’s, whose wickedly expansive taste in music I both love and trust. We were packed in a single room on top of a bar in Brussels with around 100 other people. There was no AC so the space stunk with its overabundance of leather-clad music fans, all waiting to hear the band play. I didn’t know what to expect, but when the music began, the once-stifling room felt almost romantic as we all swayed to the weird, experimental tones spilling off the stage, each rife with whimsy. This was the Fievel Is Glauque. Now they’ve got a new album out called Rong Weicknes.

This is the band’s third record and first under the label Fat Possum, featuring an octet of performers from around the globe. With the new label under their belts, Phillips and Clément were able to spend more time than ever making music, carving out a week to record in New York. There they made the album the way Phillips has always dreamed of doing things: “live in triplicate,” making three different recordings per song with no click-track, the third an improvisational take, giving room for rhythms to move and breathe. While this spontaneous method of recording made for excellent creative freedom, it also made the post-production process very intensive. The labor of love paid off, making for especially dynamic sounds. One highlight track off the album is “Haute Contre Bas”.

“During the editing of this one, where I had to boil down 100+ instrumental stems from 3 simultaneous, no-click-track versions of the full band, I tried to fight my ‘orderly’ impulses and let it open up into a benevolent mess, emphasizing the conversational interplay of every little lick by every player, each yielding to the next, and so on and on,” Phillips said.

Written in 2009, the single is the product of Phillips challenging himself to write and record an album entirely in French in under a week, an ambitious feat considering he did not know much of the language. The result was his 2011 album Jours Avec Jennie. “Haut Contre Bas” was one leftover from this era, but not quite lost to the wheels of time. Instead, it kept playing in Phillips’s head over the years until he finally decided to make it come to life with Clément, who added in French lyrics of her own.

The result is a refreshing burst of sonic maximalism and features an unlikely piano solo for Phillips. The final track on the album, it’s a strong closer that wraps up the album’s playful arpeggios, jazzy rhythms and themes, wild time signatures, and all its other theatrics. “A victory song to close the journey. It still contains the energy of the recent playful game we played to finally find peace again,” Clement said of the song.

While Fievel Is Glauque is still pretty DIY, they have opened for avant-pop legend Stereolab. Fievel is something of a kindred spirit to that iconic indie Anglo-French group, crafting equally virtuosic, whimsical, and epic songs. To become enlivened by the entirety of their new album, give “Haut Contre Bas" and the rest of the project a listen below.