Myd - Born a Loser

April 30, 2021 - Ed Banger Records

Our boy Quentin Lepoutre is here with his debut album as Myd. The French musician and composer has been teasing eardrums and tantalizing playlists for the past few years as he embarked on music projects, remixes, and an original film soundtrack. 

Lepoutre wastes no time weaving a musical landscape defined by its timelessness, filled with syrupy synth lines and multi-generational percussive loops. Many of the tracks here follow a trajectory the artist has employed before, with nearly-oppressive sunshine-filled waves of nostalgia-wrapped feel-good sunset-party feelings. It’s certainly a welcome atmosphere to spend some time in, like a warm, sandy embrace coupled with an ice-cold blended beverage close at hand. Lepoutre explores some of the sample material here a little deeper than usual, sometimes seeming to luxuriate in the manipulation of the vocal bits and recorded ambiance. A few tracks deviate from the beach setting, but they keep their party towels on. The title track ‘Born a Loser’ is the first to shift the mood, with haunting modulation applied to a wailing vocal driven mad by the undulating, bouncy bassline. ‘The Sun’ from the 2017 EP All Inclusive makes an appearance on this project, and while it caught me by surprise at first, it quickly asserts its necessary inclusion, helping to bridge years of ideas and songs that exist together on the album. 

Uruguayan-turned-New Yorker Juan Wauters rounds a lazy river bend on ‘Whether the Weather.’ As the songwriter/guitarist floats gently downstream, Lepoutre kicks up the tension with a dark, angst-filled kick drum, almost letting all the calm out before merging the two sentiments together for a lengthy outro. It’s the first of several collaborations on the project, and is followed by Canadian singer-songwriter Mac DeMarco on ‘Call Me’ and ‘Moving Men.’ The former is quickly eclipsed by the latter, with the mid-2010-style chirpy melody weighing the rest of the production on ‘Call Me’ down enough to prevent it escaping the atmosphere. ‘Moving Men,’ however, is a highlight on the album. The collaborative juices are palpable between Lepoutre and DeMarco, with an absolutely infectious whistle melody and a pair of spine-tingling key shift transitions. What a treat. 

Lepoutre moves the action back to the beach for the next few tracks, with some slight genre bending on ‘It’s About You’ and ‘I Feel Better (I Got Something).’ ‘Now That We Found Love’ is a fairly straightforward late-nite closer track centered around a beefy sample from The O’Jays same-titled piece. It’s all a front though, as the real closer is yet to come. Saving some of the best for last, Lepoutre teams up with British artist Bakar. A sultry groove is laid down for Bakar’s honey-tipped vocals, soft synth chords meshing perfectly with gravely intonation and compounding waves of energy. The finale is a proper send-off to the album, and to the future end of the upcoming summer. Lepoutre has once again harnessed that rather French sentiment of romantic melancholy, of taking on the good with full knowledge of the balancing of the scales that will inevitably follow. It’s a sentiment we’re thankful for, and we thank Lepoutre for this latest incarnation. 🍍