Fabienne Delsol – ‘Indigo Red’ (Damaged Goods)
Fabienne Delsol’s ‘Indigo Red’ feels like an album that’s been left out in the sun a little too long, specifically in my garden at the moment, where the glass-topped table really needs a wipe with a damp cloth but I daren’t for fear of it shattering into a million pieces. The colours are still bright, still unmistakably hers, but the edges have started to fuzz and warp, like a grand church organ being played through one of those tiny white Casio VL‑Tone keyboards kids used to get for Christmas. That combination – stately intention filtered through something toy‑sized and slightly unstable – runs through the whole record. It’s the source of its charm and the source of its disquiet.
The opening track ‘She Is Gone’ sets the tone immediately. It isn’t dreamy; it’s that strange state you fall into when you’re exhausted, but your mind refuses to shut up. Pillow fever. The song drifts with a kind of soft inevitability, but underneath it there’s a restless churn, the same churn that keeps you awake at 2 am replaying the Teams call where you should have spoken up, or wondering why you didn’t bother wishing someone happy birthday online. Maybe they’re dead now. That’d teach me. Fabienne’s voice floats above it all, calm but not comforting, like someone sitting beside you in the dark who won’t tell you what they’re thinking.
‘I Heard About a Friend’ and ‘If All Things Were Never Said’ push deeper into that unsettled territory. The rhythms are slightly ungainly, almost uncultured, but delicious in the way an odd physical sensation can be, like the moment water finally slips out of your ear hours after swimming. You wouldn’t ask for it, but when it happens, it’s exquisite. The keyboards stack in layers that shouldn’t make sense but do, a little army of VL‑Tone ghosts humming behind the guitars. Fabienne talked about building songs with five or six keyboard tracks, and you can hear that density: not cluttered, just thick with intention.
Her take on ‘I Have Known Love’ is one of the album’s strangest triumphs. Instead of leaning into the original’s electronic pulse, she turns it into something more bodily – a slow, feverish walk through a room where the furniture keeps shifting when you’re not looking. The drums feel hypnotic, the bassline feels like it’s trying to remember something important, and the whole thing leers at you like your reflection in a wonky mirror. It’s psychedelic, but not in the paisley‑swirl way; more in the “why does this corridor feel longer than it should” way.
‘Black Sheep’ brings a different kind of tension. There’s warmth in the playing, a familial ease, but the song itself has a slight doom‑shadow hanging over it. Not melodrama, just that quiet sense of something unresolved. The welcome mat is out, but you’re not entirely sure you want to step inside.
The covers deepen the album’s odd emotional palette. ‘Daughter of the Sun’ glows, but the glow is unstable, flickering at the edges. ‘Le Premier Bonheur du Jour’ closes the record with a kind of whispered relief, the moment you finally start to drift off only to be nudged awake by one last intrusive thought. It’s beautiful, but it’s not peaceful.
Across the album, Fabienne’s long‑standing love of fuzz guitars, psychedelia, French pop and exotic soundtracks is still present, but ‘Indigo Red’ adds something new: a low‑level anxiety that never overwhelms the songs but never quite leaves them alone either. It’s the feeling of being gently haunted by your own thoughts, of trying to sleep while the “how to wash” label on the pillow keeps sticking up your nose.
Daz Lawrence
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