Cyesm is a producer from France that has been delivering a wide variety of projects over the course of the last twenty years. Back in April, he gave us a short project by the name of The Man From Taured, something of a soundtrack to an urban legend. Now he comes back with a full-length album, Minorities.

One of the exciting things about following Cyesm’s career is that you never know what to expect with each release, because he’s already covered so much ground. It could be downtempo, it could be post-rock, it could be classical, it could be any number of things. With Minorities, we get an album that doesn’t easily fit into any one genre. There’s a classical element to it, there’s some spoken word, there’s some downtempo, there’s some post-rock, and there’s some goth rock to it. It’s never just one of these things. It’s more like a river that’s winding between these styles of music, sometimes bending more in a certain direction, but always living in this unique in-between space. Most of the melodic and harmonic work is being carried by piano and strings, with drums and bass bringing in the hip hop element of the project. There are a couple of guests on the album, such as the beautiful and powerful vocals of Ineige on “Quarantine,” who has a fantastic ear for melody. Fmr2mars comes into provide some top shelf turntablism to “Strike It Twice,” which pushes the composition into more of a Wax Tailor direction, as he slices some pop culture references against brooding strings. It’s an album that is best listened to on headphones, perhaps on a cloudy day, where you can really get inside your own head and let the music bounce around, and you can explore all of the nuances that Cyesm’s thoughtful compositions provide you.

There aren’t too many musicians quite like Cyesm, and each time out is an adventure. Minorities is some of his moodiest, intimate work, full of really smart production and arrangements that bring together a wide range of styles.