Composer, musician, and producer David Chalmin, blessed with limitless sensitivity, ventures into the realm of dreamy, modern folk music against a backdrop of sumptuous electronic arrangements. The five songs on his Innocence EP, imbued with a soft wistfulness, evoke elements of Radiohead and Nick Drake.

Over the past ten years, David Chalmin has assumed an increasing number of roles: as a producer, arranger and sound engineer alongside some of the mos respected indie figures worldwide (The National, Shannon Wright); as a contemporary music composer, having founded the Dream House Quartet with pianists Katia and Marielle Labèque (who hosted Thom Yorke on stage in 2019); and as a mastermind of dense, heady electronica with his album La terre invisible in 2019. As he put it, “singing came as something of a surprise in his musical development”. During the work sessions for this album at his studio in the Basque Country some tracks came out sounding more like songs than electronic instrumental pieces. David stored these tracks in his extensive portfolio of demos, just waiting for the perfect occasion to use them. Then came the revelation: The sixth movement of the piece Sept Particules, composed in 2018 for harpsichordist Justin Taylor and his ensemble Le Consort, was sung to critical acclaim. And now, his soft, sensitive voice has become an integral part of all five tracks on Innocence EP.

David Chalmin’s music has the clarity, confidence, and self-evidence of works that have matured over time, reflecting experience that is unencumbered by outside influences and perspectives. The songs he is now publishing are the sum of all his compositions and collaborations to date, the result of a formal approach and a patiently crafted instrumental set-up combining machines, synthesizers, piano and guitar. All contain limpid melodies that are accompanied (Innocence), interfered with and thrown off balance (St-Nazaire, The Storm), or even covered up (Garden of Memories) by rhythmic elements and electronic arrangements. Their textures betray a certain darkness: the dark side of a happy, fulfilled artist whose music is marked by muted melancholy, interacting with the sadness in the world as an antidote reacts with poison. With a title that establishes the purity of his intentions, Innocence comes to a dream-like end with ten beautiful minutes of Surrender, featuring a glowing melody and haunting electronic waves that invite the listener to cast fate to the wind.