ROUGE by Noir et Blanc

Succeeding last year’s album 'Wallflower Pedestrian', 'ROUGE' offers a continuation of themes of cyclical motifs and visually invoking titles. The new album continues the visual narration structure of its predecessor, with a slight shift in focus to introspection and inner emotions. Between the swelling peaks of density and melody, the listener is able to feel and breathe through their own emotive state or visual imagery. Such imagery is accompanied by the varying titles of the tracks, which all weave into 'ROUGE'’s theme in different ways.

The overall palette of Noir et Blanc’s (Amber Ramsay) sophomore album is much more thorough and refined compared to previous works. The piano was tracked live at The Barn Recording Studio in Plainland on a 6' Kawai Grand Piano, with improvised piano accompaniment from fhae (Ellena Ramsay) on two tracks. The bareness of the piano is contrasted with layers of Prophet 6 and Minilogue, which solely fill the sonic space on tracks ‘Rythme, Toucher, Tourner’ and ‘Centre de la Terre’. Among the tonal diversity lies modular drones arranged with Spirit Lights (Joshua MacGregor) on many of the more subtle tracks.

“The album came together in a quite quick and seamless way compared to much of my previous work,” says Ramsay. “It feels special having done it with a slightly collaborative approach. To me, the songs feel like they each have their own world inside them but they’re very much open to interpretation.”

Meanjin based project Noir et Blanc arose in early 2020, formed by composer and producer Amber Ramsay.

Setting out to fuse the relationship of music in film with neoclassical arrangements for the modern day listener.

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