Alber Jupiter

Cosmic French duo Alber Jupiter hail from Rennes in North West France which is best known for its medieval half-timbered houses and neoclassical cathedral. The pair grew up there listening to artists like Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, though the real epiphany for them came when, as teenagers, they accidentally caught the Chilean space rockers Föllakzoid at a festival in Switzerland, a moment they describe as “like a slap in the face”.

“We said to ourselves, that’s what we have to do, we need to put together a band like Föllakzoid!” says bass player Nicolas Terroitin. “We wanted to plagiarise their music but what came out was something more personal.” Föllakzoid’s immersive soundscapes were joined by a burgeoning love of everything kosmische. “When I was 20, I met musicians who played Krautrock,” he adds: “It was psychedelic! Hypnotic! With groove! Elements that I loved in music in general, and which in Krautrock were brought together in a way that was new to me.”

Drummer Jonathan Sonney had more exposure to these motorik sounds from an earlier age. “I discovered Krautrock very early because my mother has a great record collection. I’d often hear Brian Eno, Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream. I wasn’t interested in it right away, but now I’d say our main influences are Neu!, Föllakzoid, Sigur Ros, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Pink Floyd.”

Terroitin adds: “To begin with, we had more of a psychedelic vision than a cosmic one. The cosmic side came next, when we found the name Alber Jupiter, slightly by chance but mainly because we thought it sounded good.”

The duo do indeed make a pulsating, exciting, and yes cosmic sound, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed by the local festival Trans Musicales, which has been running every December since 1979 and has put on artists as immensely successful as Nirvana, Daft Punk and the Beastie Boys. As well as a five night residency there, they’ve also recorded two albums, 2019’s //We Are Just Floating In Space// and this year’s //Puis Vient La Nuit// or ‘then comes the night’.

One wonders how they manage to make such an awesome racket with just a drum kit and a bass guitar? “Effects,” says Terroitin, “especially delays which multiply each note. Throw in a looper with two amps in stereo to thicken the sound. It helps to give the illusion of a bigger group.”

The artwork for //Puis Vient La Nuit// features one solitary tree being reigned over by a terrifying black fireball while the press release talks of the “death of our sun” two billion years from now. Is this a concept record then? And are they untowardly concerned about the sun’s hydrogen running out?

“No, not really,” replies Terroitin, curtly. “We became a bit delirious after reading the book //Last And First Men// by [sci-fi writer] Olaf Stapledon, which tells of the end of humanity when the sun is about to die, and the hope for it to be reborn from its ashes. We were just trying to give coherence to the story to the album but it’s not really a conceptual thing, we composed the pieces without worrying about that business. To be clear,” he says, with a laugh, “the death of the sun doesn’t scare us.”

PROG FILE

Lineup: Nicolas Terroitin (bass), Jonathan Sonney (drums)

Sounds like: Neu! in outer space

Current release: //Puis Vient La Nuit// is out April 5th on Up In Her Room records.

Website: https://alberjupiter.bandcamp.com/

– – Jeremy Allen