Benoit Pioulard, aka Thomas Meluch, has announced that he is to release his fourth album, the follow up to 2010’s Lasted, via Kranky on March 4th. Entitled Hymnal, it was written and recorded during a year spent in southern England and in Europe, and apparently drew strong inspiration from the cathedrals and religious iconography he encountered along the way.
"Raised as a Catholic but never especially pious, Meluch drew on this aspect of social history as the basis for Hymnalʼs 12 chapters," says the text accompanying the album’s release. "He notes a particular preoccupation with the ways that faith offers a sense of solace and belonging in an existence that inherently provides none, framed in a context of tradition, ritual and the notion of the eternal."
We’re promised a whole range of approaches, from instrumental compositions to more pop-leaning tracks. In advance of the album’s release, the label have released a video for album track ‘Margin’ – a hazy slice of shoegazey pop – which you can watch via the embed above.
