Delivering the inaugural release for France’s breakout new imprint GÉOGRAPHIE (operated by Rémi Lafitte, the founder of the former influential label Atelier Ciseaux), Marble Arch announces the anticipated second album Children of the Slump. Having been five years since the debut album The Bloom of Division; Yann Le Razavet elaborates upon those initial lo-fi intimate sounds to convey those personal pangs of yearning and vulnerability in a rich array of gorgeous musical fabrics that wrap around the listener like a posh patchwork quilt stitched with love. Here our international arsenal of fears and unease are gathered in an illustrious song cycle that spans the wave of emotions from the melancholic, the sensual, the sentimental, the cynical with always a flickering candle flame of hope.

With a sound elegant like the London triumphal arch designed by Josh Nash, the new Marble Arch album is arranged with textures, tropes and motifs of grandeur. Nostalgic highlight reel thought streams can be felt on the bonus cut "Reminiscence", as "Instant Love" captures the feeling of falling head over heels with a rhythm section of pure exhilaration. Le Razavet crafts every song with plenty of heart sewn sweetly on the sleeve where every track conjures a shared experience like the life in transit trajectory of "I'm On My Way", the pensive and subdued "Today", to taking the audience deep into the recesses of night on the heart crushed "Moonstruck". Yann's specialty for making music centered around the many moods that reflects our age of angst and anger allows for the audience to connect to electric currents of emotions. With a style that invites us to follow the feels, Children of the Slump tosses out the need to conform to any particular aesthetic of any era. Ballads like "Your Song" drift like esoteric underground classics, "Gold" shines like a nod to the NYC scenes of the oughts, "Leave It" negotiates items of abandonment with an early mid-80s indie label chic flair, right as the beautiful title track outro showcases the brilliance of MA's seamless marriage of lo-fi DIY futurism with nods to the new romantics. The key balance at work is a sensibility for sophistication that intertwines an organic approach of primitivism and infinite experimental possibilities.

Yann Le Razavet from Marble Arch shared some exclusive reflections about the new album:

Children of the Slump is my second album. It is more colorful, more mature and it is closer to the reality of a gig.
For this LP, I tried to evolve sounds and ambiances to assume more strongly the association of my influences.There is always this mix of melancholy, dreams, pop and memories.
I chose the name Children of the Slump because the track summarizes pretty well the mood of the album. It is a kind of inventory of our generation a little lost, stuck between hope and bitterness.

Marble Arch’s album Children of the Slump will be available March 22 from GÉOGRAPHIE.

Cover art for Marble Arch’s new album Children of the Slump. — Cover art for Marble Arch’s new album *Children of the Slump*.

The sophisto-pop styles of Marble Arch