La reproduction is the dawn-of-the-decade album from an engineering graduate with a precarious but flexible voice: Arnaud Fleurent-Didier, or AFD, practitioner of a dandified lyricism à la Vincent Delerm, conspicuously countering the socially blasé orator so common in French culture. AFD’s work often stands at the edge of slam, against a background of baroque pop piano à la William Sheller and electronica à la Jérôme Minière — or a mini-Air, given that Stéphane Briat, half of that famous French duo, handled mixing duties here. All in all, a substantial album.
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