| Dustedmagazine |
 Although his lyrics are inaudible verbosities and his name is a pseudonym and he goes about the whole business in a fancifully gallicized way that’s probably not necessary, Benoît Pioulard makes a lot of sense. He gets that the calm in his line of work should be deceptive, that the value of complexity in folk music is above all ornamental. This is what he does eerily well: make the lilting and simple sound very busy, and vice versa. A great deal of sound goes into his canvases, and his control of it, the richness of the result, is pretty often breathtaking.
Temper differs little in composition from Pioulard’s first full-length, Précis: guitars first, then processed instruments and tinny rhythm tracks, found noises and drone interludes, a few distinct incarnations of Pioulard’s (er, Thomas Meluch’s) weary, preoccupied coo. The songs are short, sometimes more like sketches and almost always shorter than they could justifiably be, bleeding into one another like neighboring transmissions on some ghostly shortwave radio....full text |
|
| Allmusic |
| Temper lives up to its name, balancing the cloudy beauty of Benoît Pioulard's music with more form and clarity and melding his folk, pop, and electronic leanings even more seamlessly. Where Précis seemed to drift from song to song depending on which way the wind blew, these songs move of their own volition: "Ragged Tint" opens Temper with shivery, rippling guitars that are much more urgent than any of Pioulard's earlier music. This nervy undercurrent pulls the album in unexpected directions, as when the chords of "Brown Bess" slide up steeply, turning the song from serene to tense. However, Pioulard's melodies are as gentle as ever, and would be lullingly lovely if there wasn't so much surrounding them. Temper's arrangements swirl, flutter, and sparkle like a just-shaken snow globe, setting off "Idyll" and "Ahn"'s crisp pop perfectly. These songs could have appeared just as easily on Précis as they do here, but other tracks move Pioulard's songwriting forward -- often by looking back: the lilting melody and prickly strumming of "A Woolgathering Exodus" have a chamber-folk cast, and "Modèle d'Éclat"'s massed harmonies and dense organ sound beautifully anachronistic. Temper expands on Pioulard's creative sonics as well: "The Loom Pedal"'s textural depth adds to its misty reverie, layering a rainstorm recording over distorted vocals and crystal-clear acoustic guitars. Pioulard is equally gifted at creating uniquely outdoorsy sound worlds as he is at crafting hook-filled songs; Précis' airy interludes were just as vital to the album as its more full-fledged tracks were. Temper has fewer of these pieces, but they're just as effective at giving Pioulard's densely constructed songs room to breathe. "Sweep Generator" and "Cycle Disparaissant" suggest vivid yet blurry images with their whorls of distortion and drones, while "Ardoise"'s watery chimes and chirping frogs are weathered with a patina of static. At times, Temper's focus means it doesn't have quite as much sweetly mysterious atmosphere as Pioulard's earlier work, but when the final track, "Hesperus," evaporates like waking from a dream, it's proof that there are plenty of moments to get lost in here....full text |
|
| Cokemachineglow |
Whatever Benoît Pioulard’s working at, it’s a safe bet he’ll be up front about it. With Temper, his second full-length for Kranky, his process is clear, transparent enough to scream through the album’s title alone when everything else bobs sweetly by. “Hey guys,” he coos and twists his forearms around each other, “I’m going to make a quiet pop folk record based on the acoustic guitar.” Then he whispers sweet nothings into his susurrant found sound, wags his finger, and giggles. It’s a precious darling of a thing.
And indelibly soothing. Like Précis (2006), the tidy, tight Temper rides a familiar floe out to some indeterminate, dark place in the middle of the ocean and then disappears. It’s whispy, definitely, but it’s also a difficult shell to sit on, alienating and—if you’re brave to admit—a bit sickening, watching an ultrasound monitor in a hospital cubicle and noting the small blip of joy, primal recognition of life-building in your heart before dwelling on the slick, gross distance between subject and object....full text |
|
Send "Benoît Pioulard " Ringtones to your Cell 
