Arman Méliès operates as a narrator whose skin rarely knows the soft caress of the radiant suburban afternoon sun. That much at least has been obvious since Casino, released in 2008. Songwriter, composer and accompanist for Bashung, Thiéfaine and Julien Doré, Méliès is the hexagonal counterpart of Quebec’s Éric Goulet. Lovers of emotional dizzyness will be enchanted by the peaks of Vertigone: “So our newfound fears/ By acid erased/ And not a sound/ Nothing, nothing that does not spoil the fruit/ Silence and night/ Has all been said?/ Drunkenness, Everest/ For Everest, unbalance me.”
