On the 19th of October 2023, the loyal fans of the explosive electro-swing band Caravan Palace were unexpectedly given a treat in the form of the single MAD. It had been just over four years since fans last heard from the band and better yet, Caravan Palace announced a new album titled Gangbusters Melody Club along with a European tour.
For those who are unaware of the electro-swing extraordinaires, Caravan Palace are a Parisian band formed of the talented instrumentalists/producers Arnaud “Vial” de Bosredon, Charles Delaporte, Martin Belugue, Lucus Saint-Cricq, Paul Marie Barbier with Zoé Colotis providing her signature dynamic vocal performances. Their broad range of influences include the jazz pioneer Django Reinhardt, known for being one of the first to use guitar as lead instrument in jazz and electronic duo Daft Punk whose music combines physical instruments and genres with early electronic music techniques creating music that still holds up to this day.
Before Gangbusters Melody Club, Caravan palace had released four albums along with a handful of singles. Their first self-titled album released in 2008 is practically the definition of electro-swing. Cover to cover, it is endless maniacal fun and was a breath of well produced fresh air into the electro-swing genre. Their second album Panic built upon the foundations that the first album had laid. Whilst still firmly operating within the genre of electro-swing, Panic starts to push at the boundaries with tracks such as Sydney introducing experimental sound design and the sound of hyper processing into the mix. The third album <|º_º|> [Robot Face] is where Caravan Palace really cemented themselves within the realms of dance and electronica. In this album Zoé Colotis comes into her own, providing a powerful and often eccentric vocal performance, accompanied perfectly by the increasingly complex sound design and effects processing. The blend of real and electronic instruments became seamless, and Caravan Palace start to use the genre of electro-swing as something that can be moulded and shaped rather than a boundary line to push against. In the fourth album Chronologic, we heard Caravan Palace further using the electro-swing genre as a tool to enhance their new ventures in the electronic dance and pop genres. This album sees a focus towards a clearer and more concise vocal from Zoé Colotis as well as guest vocalists Charles X and Tom Bailey. The album has a range of lighter sounding tracks that lean towards pop whilst still retaining the distinctive Caravan Palace instrumentation. Dotted throughout the album are short instrumentations such as Fargo and Ghosts that sound like a callback to earlier albums. Within Chronologic, the tracks Leena and April appear to break away from the classic Caravan Palace sound that we had grown used to. At first, I had to listen over a few times to understand what I was hearing. These tracks had transcended the sound I had grown used to. This was the result of an extremely intricate and experimental focus on hyper processed sounds, all cut to fit together as if they were pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. After listening to Gangbusters Melody Club, this was definitely foreshadowing for the future album.
Gangbusters Melody Club is a masterful combination of all the best elements from Caravan Palace’s previous albums. Tracks such as Portobello hark back to their self-titled album due to the focus on its physical instrumentation and 1920’s style vocal processing. Tracks such as MAD capture the quirky juxtaposition of processed physical instruments and vocals in much the same way as their chaotic album Panic. Tracks such as Mirrors, 81 Special and Spirits are a continuation of Zoé Colotis’ powerful, eccentric and sassy vocals that were so prominent in Robot Face. They shine through in her tracks in Gangbusters Melody Club. Chronologic’s shift towards pop genres is expanded on in tracks such as Reverse, City Cook and Villa Rose although this time the album has been focused strongly towards creating strong dance tracks which is evidently successful throughout. More exciting than all these callbacks however is how Caravan Palace took the tracks in this album to a whole new level using the intricate and experimental sound processing and design that was seen briefly in Chronologic.
Gangbusters Melody Club takes the genre of electro-swing and turns it on its head by creating tracks with such a high level of intricate sound design and effects processing. Sound has been treated as a malleable material, demonstrated best in tracks such as Fool and Blonde Dynamite. The resulting sound gives you the impression that Caravan Palace have gained complete control over their sound but let it run completely wild anyway for the fun of it.
Caravan Palace is a rare example how one band or musician can be so influential to a particular genre that they can completely redefine what that genre can mean. This can be singlehandedly dragging that genre into the limelight or experimenting with combinations of other genres within the context of their original genre. Whatever it is, I excitedly watch for the continuation of these artists and the creation of new genre defining artists in genres I’ve never encountered before.
Listen to Caravan Palace on all major streaming platforms and via the link below.
Voltage Controlled Media 