“Amusement Park” is taken from Nicolas Michaux‘s new album, Les Chutes, out October 1 on Capitane Records.
With “Amusement Park,” Belgian singer-songwriter and producer Nicolas Michaux channels a gentler, more melancholy Black Keys-esque blues to accompany his own musings on overurbanization – expressed both through his subtle lyricism and a well-crafted music video directed by Kevin Antoine and François Dubois.
“Amusement Park” opens by establishing a melodic ebb-and-flow of slowly pulsating combination guitar-bass-Wurlitzer that anchors the cut throughout its runtime. Michaux doesn’t waste time to establish his cause: as he wanders aimlessly through the Copenhagen urban sprawl, he admits his nostalgia for his childhood trips to rural Norway will never allow him to enjoy the west’s, if not the world’s, tendencies to design and develop in ways meant to entrap our now-commodified attention spans. Armed with a briefcase that could only be filled with more lyrics documenting his existential dread and a cigarette incapable of accomplishing anything but providing momentary respite, he acknowledges that not even his early memories are safe from being paved over. A scornfully lamenting guitar solo ensues, breaking the piece’s tidal tendencies in an outburst of sonic emotion. As the guitar returns to lockstep with its ensemble and Michaux escapes to a secluded, verdant hideaway, I realize that though he may not be choosing to engage with the encroaching sprawl directly, his time spent in the dark is no doubt in service of composing further poignant tunes juxtaposing his lush and tranquil past with his current calculatedly concrete reality.
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