Mirage – Saycet (Meteores Music) reviewed by Dave Franklin

A wise man once said that it was better to travel well than to arrive and Mirage is the perfect soundtrack to such a journey, whether it is a physical one or one of a more emotional nature. Inspired by the travel that his touring schedule dictates, Pierre LeFeuvre songs are often reflections of very tangible, geographical phenomena and places as suggested by the titles – Volcano, Northern Lights, Smiles From Thessaloniki and Cite Radieuse. But if the subjects are easily identified, the music that describes them is altogether harder to define.

Sitting somewhere between sweeping, cinematic soundtracks, ambient après-dance chill outs and one possible future for pop music, across these 10 tracks the listener encounters grandiose electronic designs and futuristic visions at one extreme, at the other minimalist structures and half-heard, dreamlike primal echos. Falling somewhere between the sounds of the natural world and the euphoria of an artificial, mechanical one, it encompasses everything from the poetic, modernistic and avant-garde of the here and now to the timeless grace of the classical past. And the closing track, Smiles From Thessaloniki, has all the hallmarks of a classic Vangelis soundtrack and it doesn’t get much better than that.