BIOGRAPHY

« It’s in the relationship between the ingredients that Seychal-Mills’ genius finds its place. Thus, each piece is built following this meticulous complexity, before starting to breathe by itself, while being lasciviously stretched, curled up in a color or an atmosphere. » (Magic, april 2004, about Seychal-Mills EP)

Seychal-Mills is a solo project that Vincent Verselle started in 2002, after several years of collaboration within various pop or post-rock bands. Seychal-Mills EP was his first release, at the end of 2003, on the Luxemburger micro-label Soundzfromnowhere. It was followed by collaborations to various compilations (USA, Canada, Switzerland). In 2007, Seychal-Mills released his first LP, Dandelions.

Following the path already taken in the EP, Dandelions is a succession of semi-electronic, semi-organic pieces, which (as it is announced by the opening title, « Montage ») are small sound constructions, at once complex, fragile and simple, like dandelions that are about to disaggregate.

Thus, the pieces of Dandelions grow on the ground of electronica and pop, but nourish themselves with forms coming from jazz or contemporary classical music, like polyrhythms, creation of an atmosphere through repetition and imbrication of melodic patterns rather than by respect of tonality, or the use of a mathematical-like formula in the last track « Sextine », entitled in reference to a poetic genre employed by troubadours and later by Oulipo.

This last reference evokes another aspect of Dandelions’ universe : literature, and its many facets. Through Oulipo, it is its ludic component which is source of inspiration (the text of « Sextine » is playing with the oulipian description of this poetic genre). Philosophers are also invited in two tracks : Albert Camus for « Tipasa » and Friedrich Nietzsche for « Was ist also Wahrheit ? » — whose musical development tries to mime the transition from momentary feelings to fixed truths described by the German thinker. Fantastic and horror are present too through the voice of Bram Stoker, during a kind of cinematic homage (« The dream of Lucy Westenra »). Last but not least, out of the literature field, « We want decibels » makes a mediatic detour, rebuilding and diverting an advertisement that praises the silence of a branded washing machine.