French Artist Sydney Valette Mixes Synthpop, EBM, and Darkwave by Mortar & Pestle in His Cathartic LP, “The Healer”

Healer
Remove, from me the disease
Do find a way to release,
The Venom, the hatred, the rancor, the toxin, the anger

The Healer, Sydney Valette’s seventh LP, dives headlong into the turbulent waters of toxic love, tracing its sharp edges—from abandonment and addiction to jealousy, despair, passion, and rage. It’s a vivid journey through the psyche of a soul ensnared by turmoil, set against the stark landscapes of Eastern Europe, carrying the whispers of past wars and lingering spectres. The chill of snowy melodies, punctuated by the soft chime of bells, fills the air as an old television flickers with black-and-white scenes, narrating a love story steeped in tragedy and inner conflict.

Valette’s reach spans the darkwave spectrum, fusing the relentless throb of EBM, the quiet chill of ambient textures, the raw edge of synth-punk, and the hypnotic pull of Italo-Disco. Classical undertones blend with goth-wave depths, held together by a razor-sharp pop instinct and a dark flicker of humor. In The Healer, Valette sculpts a sound both lush and sharp-edged, drawing listeners into a complex labyrinth of love, loss, and endurance—each track a step deeper into a realm where survival finds its own defiant rhythm.

Each track feels like a keen observation—a mirror held to our fractured selves, capturing moments of insight, irony, and our own complex reflections. The album opens with the brief instrumental The Confession of Bernard before launching into So Lost, which shimmers with cinematic tension all its own. With resonant vocal laments, the composition unfolds, embodying a delicate tension between urgency and solitude. Cloaked in an icy veneer, it strikes a poised balance while emphasizing striking contrasts. Its rhythmic repetitions carve out a fragile beauty, revealing a flicker of light that struggles to pierce the dense veil of oblivion.

As the pulsations of Pharmakon take hold, Valette dives into the beat, crafting an EBM anthem that pulses with untamed energy. This track epitomizes the spirit of Berlin’s underground—gritty, relentless, and vividly alive amid the rhythm and haze. The vocals exude swagger, building into soaring, anthemic chants that resonate with soaring power.

The title track, “The Healer,“ opens with a soft cascade of distorted sounds that seamlessly flow into intricate baroque 16-bit melodies, laced with slightly medieval beats. It delves into our unrelenting pursuit of salvation and highlights our yearning to mend and find solace through a “cure” that always seems tantalizingly out of reach. In this piece, Valette masterfully captures the paradox of modern humanity’s fixation on salvation. He explores the tensions that lie at the heart of our collective need for healing while simultaneously acknowledging our resistance to change. The vocals unfold like a heartfelt plea for strength and clarity, yearning for comfort and redemption from one who possesses the secrets to transformation. It is a raw and powerful invocation for healing, resilience, and liberation from the weight of emotional and spiritual afflictions.

“La Maman et le Fantôme” resonates with a haunting, chant-like rhythm that captivates the senses. Its bass synths, drenched in the industrial grit of Nitzer Ebb, intertwine with the evocative, gothic sighs of Xymox’s Medusa era. The sultry, Brelian vocal delivery enhances its seductive quality, crafting a dark, driving anthem that unfolds like a mesmerizing ritual in motion.

The Knife slashes through with relentless energy, its rapid-fire beats underscoring distorted, spoken-word fragments over strange, futuristic synth pads, a track both frenetic and fierce. Then comes La Tempête de Neige, an instrumental beauty that drifts through the air like snowflakes catching light. Evoking the timeless synth mastery of Wendy Carlos and Delia Derbyshire, it hums with an ageless, ethereal quality, resonating through the echoes of time.

The Wanderer paints a portrait of an artist settled into his identity, shaded by his favorite color—black. Yet he drifts within its dark depths, occasionally pulling forth vibrant, irresistible rhythms. This track stands as the album’s natural centerpiece, where Valette’s voice emerges clear, a rare moment of vulnerability within his usual post-apocalyptic tales, lending a human heartbeat to the mix. An ethereal chorus swells toward the close, in seamless harmony with the crisp, striking production.

Relax strikes hard and fast, its rapid synths and jittery beats pounding with dark electro energy. Yet The Avenger offers more than mere nods to genre; it walks a fine line between glacial hymns and densely layered synthscapes. Here, Valette’s hallmark elegance and meticulous Midas touch transform the song into something precise and poised.

A Thousand Oceans is another spectacular instrumental – ghostly and strange, like the early ambient experiments of Moby superimposed with sampled sound.

Finally, with L’Ecran Bleu, Valette reaches a new peak of compositional finesse. The French language track builds slowly, like a smoldering ember, spiraling into a crescendo that feels like the album’s defining high. It’s a vortex of dark intensity, where the languid emotion of artists like Jacques Brel or Serge Gainsbourg collides with a spacey, industrial pulse.

Few artists reimagine dark wave and electronic music with such innovation, this masterpiece of an album is something wholly original.

Listen to The Healer at the link below, or order here.

Sydney Valette’s production and composition tread a fine line between the nostalgic and the modern, flaunting a polished precision while stripping songs back to their bare roots. In this delicate balance, he reveals the raw pulse beneath his pop creations, moments of hesitation and spark marking his path through sound. These latest tracks bristle with energy, promising to ignite his live performances—already hailed as some of the most intense and exhilarating solo shows around. Valette’s stage presence carries a fierce vitality, every beat and lyric charged with the thrill of exploration and a refusal to settle for well-worn paths.

Catch Sydney Valette live at the following dates:

• Nov 16 Alter Schlachthof Dresden, Germany
• Jan 22 La Boule Noire Paris, France

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