When most budding musicians / producers of Madeon’s age would pretty much be dreaming of the day that they might cut a record, in the case of the young French electronic genius, it is more real. It is an actuality.
Almost from the moment that the youngster dropped his now infamous “Pop Culture” mashup on YouTube the whole scope of Madeon’s abilities became noticeable and in turn escalated acted to his path in becoming the internationally known and recognised name that we know him as today.
Madeon’s vibrantly pulsing cinematic sound has since won a place within gaming culture and media franchises, who look to the whizz-kids high impact production pieces to assist as a springboard of engaging influence for their various marketing campaigns. But, how do these larger-than-life production pieces hold up when formatted into a debut album? Will our ears be left buzzing in the wake of a collection of merely whomping bass-lines and strong EDM builds?
The short answer is no. Madeon has sought to inject character into the mix by calling upon the assistance of guest collaborators from all spectrums of music genres in seeking to dispel the EDM myth that a collection of tracks of this nature are moreover, mostly leaning towards the generic and one dimensional.
Whilst, Madeon does see to it to dedicate a quarter of the “Adventure” album tracks (“Isometric”, “OK”, “Imperium”, Pixel Empire”) enabling that he is able to indulge in bringing forth his charismatic signature style of French-house production, since it is when the boy wonder concentrates solely upon instrumental tracks the chance to embrace his innovative streak fully comes into play.
More the stroke of genius throughout the “Adventure” album though, goes with Madeon’s foresight whereby, rather than choosing to enlist a cast of co-collaborators who just lend their voice into the Madeon signature setting. Madeon’s approach instead is to go with building his electronic soundscapes around the suited signature origins of his guest vocalists allotted genres. Thus “You’re On” featuring Kyan circulates around a more soul devoted vibe, team up with Bastille’s Dan Smith on “La Lune” comes dictated uppermost of indie-pop projection whilst, a strong pop accent is assertively evident on current focus track “Pay No Mind” featuring Passion Pit.
It is no casual choice that Madeon has choosen the title “Adventure” for this debut album, as he is clearly of the mind-set to present his take on EDM as a medium that has far more scope and capabilities to offer than just being used to produce an endless stream of generic club ready bangers.
There are twists, transitions and shifts in dynamics at every turn during the duration of Madeon’s debut album “Adventure” which thus, positively play to the strengths of ensuring the listener remains engaged throughout.
A polished, accomplished and intuitively mature beyond Madeon’s years album debut if ever we heard one.
“Adventure” by Madeon is released March 30th