Todd Gautreau’s last name might associate you with a guy from France and not Dallas, Texas. But then, wrong presumptions will not take us anywhere, particularly if you approach the music he has produced on his newest album with Crushed Stars, “Displaced Sleepers”.
Now, maybe you have not heard of Todd previously (I haven’t), but you might have encountered his music anyway. You, see, Gautreau has been producing music for more than twenty years, starting out with “Tear Ceremony”, “Tapes and Topographies”, or “Film Student”. To cover most of these projects, he runs a label too, Simulacra Records.
But it is Crushed Stars he concentrates most on, and personally, rightfully so. Talking about this new album, reviewers have thrown out quite a number of names that they see inspired Gautreau: Lloyd Cole, Sarah Records, The Church.
While we are with Australians, let me throw a few more names that come to my mind while listening to this excellent album: The Apartments and its leader Peter Milton Walsh, The Go-Betweens (Walsh played with them too), or a British name from more recent times: The Clientele.
But Gautreau has been around too long, has absorbed his references quite well and has enough personal imagination to be just another imitator.
The moment “Permafrost” opens the album you get that feeling: yes, this is the sound I want to listen to at this very moment. Even if you would not in any way get the impression that Gautreau is in a good mood (who is these days). The thing is he is able to hit that precise nerve with exactly the right sound, right note, and intonation.
By the time you get to the album’s highlight, “Sleepwalking” you are asking yourself, why haven’t I heard this band before, and what has this guy been absent for four years?
So how can you be sure who is Gautreau inspired by? Going through this album quite a few times I can tell you that is not the right question. The right one is: does it really matter? Good stuff.
