Apollo Noir - Hyper Apollo Noir

Hyper is a surprise album, arriving while we are still reeling from CORE, and incidentally the fifth solo album from Rémi Sauzedde aka Apollo Noir. From the hushed dream pop of Home - Gone or Shadow World to the neo-90s electronic firebrands of The Donut Is Burning, Clipper and Désordre, this mature, luminous, finely chiselled album refuses to be confined to any genre. With a sound that has been recognisable among thousands since his debut album A/N, Apollo Noir is not shy about letting the ghosts of My Bloody Valentine, Aphex Twin or The Prodigy hover, welcomes Fiona Walden, Mark Kerr (Maestro) and Canblaster as guests, makes Taurus Ariel and Heaven Can Be Real into soundtracks for imaginary films, and thus quietly establishes Hyper as his most accomplished album to date, the one where his ideal record collection finally takes shape, somewhere between Primal Scream and MBV or Sonic Youth and the early days of Warp.

“From the age of 18, all my money went into records. Vinyl, but mostly CDs that I could listen to in the car: Primal Scream, Spiritualized, The Jesus and Mary Chain, Boards of Canada, PJ Harvey, Sonic Youth, Scott Walker... This was 2008. Then streaming arrived. I kept buying a few vinyl records, and carefully stored my CDs at my mother’s, in Auvergne. Twenty years later, I took all those boxes out again. I rediscovered my ideal record collection, the musical foundations of the music lover I am, the ones that probably still inspire my music today. From my sofa, as I write this text, I turn my head towards my CD shelf: Loveless by My Bloody Valentine, Spacemen 3, The Feelies, Arthur Russell, Nick Cave, Blonde Redhead, Swans, all of Sonic Youth, Free Kitten, and a few electronic records: Joakim, DyE, LCD, The Faint, Boards of Canada, Autechre, The Knife, Boys Noize, Justice, Daft Punk, Cold Cave. The list is endless. For me, these albums are classics. I know them by heart. I can’t say the same about what I’ve been listening to on streaming for twenty years, even though there are hundreds of things I love, and also know by heart. Hyper is an ode to pre-streaming music, and to life before all that. A joyful, digested nostalgia that I dived back into without even thinking about it. Having become a father for the second time a few months ago, maybe that is the real reason for this search, for this recovered carefreeness, and for this desire for permanence.” Apollo Noir, September 2026