Paris-based Heliums is a girl/boy duo comprised of Baptiste Leroy & Sarah Pitet, also known as singer in the new wave band Fiasco (featured a couple of time in the past, here and here), who play an atmospheric and introspective, sometimes interspersed by intense outbusts of angst, synth-laden pop, somewhere between John Maus’ warlike rhythms, Slowdive’s aerial take-offs and The Smiths’ dancing melancholy.
The pair is going to release this Spring their debut EP entitled “Morning Dunes”, vinyl 12″ and Digital, via fellow independent label In Silico Records, preceded by the DIY Video for the song “Someday”, probably the most pop-oriented song of the 5-tracker, and represents also the true first release of Sarah and Baptiste.
“Morning Dunes” EP keeps on splitting between French and English lyrics, feminine and masculine voices, dancing and nostalgia.
Sad minimal synth notes and chords carefully tap atop anxious palpatory snare beats as softly shy worried female vocals alternate with shamed scared shouts haloed in shocked stuttering male disbelief to form a painful representation of nonexistent suffering, sparsely heightened by punchy rhythms and vibrating, mourning synth riffs.
Lyrics written as an inner dialogue rehearse the nervous conversation that will take place when a secret shame can no longer be hidden, as a woman becomes so lost in another, she has no life, or identity, of her own.
Harsh visual imagery conceals all but the face and hands of a man and woman as he abruptly pushes through her like an invisible door in a dramatic physical portrayal of a woman who feels she is nothing without a man.
photo by @hadriengz
