Karaocake
Active under the name of Domotic since his first album Bye Bye (Active Suspension 2002), Stéphane has never stopped digging his groove as a young modern boy who doesn't know the difference between a Harmony guitar and an analog synth, The Beatles and Autechre, Protools and a tape echo from 1966. From the pure and ambiguous electronica of his beginnings to his last 2 solo albums under his name, Stéphane Laporte (whose first volume Fourrure sounds was released in 2014 by Antinote), he crossed the last 15 years in the shadow but in hyperactive at the helm of different projects all more exciting than the others (Egyptology, Centenaire, Orval Carlos Sibelius, Konki duet...).
Camille Chambon came to her own music almost by accident and, because that blessed day she had nothing but a Casio and a Garageband, she started writing and singing about the inability to be in the world. (Almost) nothing was different for Camille the day she recorded the first track of Karaocake than for Bill Callahan the day he recorded the first track of Smog. Since then, she's been cramming notes and chord progressions into notebooks and turning them into songs.
“Here & now”
After a first album Rows & stitches released by Clapping Music and praised everywhere, Camille Chambon and Stéphane 'Domotic' Laporte have played about fifty concerts (France, United States, Germany, Canada) opening for Au Revoir Simone, Caribou, Owen Pallett, Yacht, Future Islands, Twin Shadows... but they especially took their time to complete a second album which definitely places them among the most singular and endearing French projects. Here & Now is a record written in a living room, recorded in a bedroom, in the evening after dinner or on sunday afternoons, in complete tranquillity. This is surely what makes the strength of the record, this serene vision, this furrow traced between futuristic music and pop canon, irresistible melodies and experimentations, erudition and relaxation. This album has the amplitude and the strength of great records. Camille's songwriting and voice rub shoulders with Stéphane Domotic's always exciting production work. Richer than the first album in the textures, the science of the sound, the writing... Here & now is a record of the present, immediate, but each new listening will reveal different aspects of it, we have not yet made the turn. In any case, it was obvious that this new album of Karaocake is released by Objet Disque, a pop research house par excellence and home to inspired bedroom producers.
Press
“One of the most winning home-recording projects.”
Wondering sound – UK
”Nulle gâterie culinaire n’égale la douceur et le sentiment de plénitude diffusés par cette collection de pop-songs enfantines (Changes of Plans), de singles aux airs de câbles dénudés (It Doesn’t Take a Whole Week), de spectories lo-fi (Eeeeerie) et de ballades polyphoniques (White Tree).”
Les Inrockuptibles
”Karaocake s’impose non seulement comme un équivalent français à Casiotone For The Painfully Alone mais distille surtout des émanations d’un Broadcast qui a laissé le monde orphelin.”
Playlist society
”En douze déclinaisons minimalistes d’une pop à claviers tendue et chancelante qui doit autant aux Young Marble Giants qu’à Broadcast ou Casiotone For The Painfully Alone, Rows And Stitches fait souffler une bise glaciale sur un paysage mental abîmé.”
Magic