La Toile
A double LP by Sylvaine Éternelle — the Bayeux Tapestry, panel by panel.
History, Embroidered by the Vanquished
Sylvaine sets the Bayeux Tapestry to music, panel by panel, in French, Latin, and the tongue of the conquered — baroque-pop, freakbeat, and sinister yé-yé stitched across eleven metres of linen. From Edward’s court to the arrow at Hastings to the spectral missing panel where the English break and run. Twenty tracks, two discs, one embroidered lie.
L’histoire est écrite par les vainqueurs. Elle est brodée par les vaincus.
Tracklist
baroque-pop opener, harpsichord
jangly Merseybeat, doomed-merry
surf-freakbeat, reverb, near-instrumental
menacing fuzz garage
yé-yé with a sinister organ
galloping anapestic garage
power-pop, bright but barbed
slow-burn baroque garage
cold yé-yé, close-read
heavier reprise of the sea figure, side-one close
candlelit baroque, short
triumphant garage-pop soured by dramatic irony
psychedelic freakbeat, fuzz, driving toms
heavy garage stomp
percussive, hammer-on-wood, building dread; side-three close
surf-gallop; the invasion proper
deceptively gentle baroque-pop, queasy underbelly
full freakbeat assault, fastest track, feedback
climax, tempo lurching from elegy to rout
spectral coda; the album's thesis