Benoît Pioulard
Biography
Thomas Meluch, a 21 year-old from Michigan, has been recording ambient soundscapes for several years under the pseudonym Benoît Pioulard. As a child, Meluch was fascinated with both natural sounds and the potential he already recognised in technology to create unearthly, alien atmospheres, and from a young age he has been recording CDRs for friends and family, capturing the transient, haunting nature of his work as it has developed.
His techniques include the use of field recordings, painstakingly assembled overdubs of treated acoustic guitars, vocal samples and carefully layered tape loops; an entrancing blend of analogue and digital approaches, which first bore fruit on his 2005 Enge EP on Moongadget records.
Precis, Meluch’s debut release for Kranky, is the sound of a multi-instrumentalist with an insatiable sonic palate who is quickly learning to deftly manipulate a wide array of sources, producing music which is both controlled and unsettling; a record backed by carefully layered bass, bells, dulcimer, old tape samples and field recordings, that sighs in time with the seasons, evoking Meluch’s lifelong love affair with nature. There are also elements of the sort of folktronica popularised by Four Tet and Lali Puna, as delicate, charming noises and melodies interweave to create a rich, organic tapestry of sound.
