‘A Mineral Love’ by Bibio Album Review: A Pastiche To Singer’s Musical Influences

Bibio‘s seventh studio album A Mineral Love pays homage to the musician’s wide range of influences from the 60s to today. The album takes a small step away from the artist’s familiar electro-pop sound in favor of a more exploratory and eclectic soundscape.

‘A Mineral Love’ by Bibio Album Review

In a recent statement, Bibio announced that his new album is meant to showcase the large variety of influences on his music as well as what makes this record so uniquely personal:

This album celebrates the sacred and precious struggles of human insecurities through many windows of familiar musical forms. It’s also a celebration of my love of the craft of record making, drawing influences from many sources across all decades from the late sixties to the present. All these referential forms have a twist, some are more full on cocktails. […]

The whole album was made from scratch with no samples from other records. I partly want it to sound like sampled records but by crafting every single detail myself and colouring it to have familiar textures that resonates people’s forgotten memories. I enjoy the challenge of writing songs that reference the unique qualities and colours of music from different eras. It’s all guesswork though, I have no real reliable knowledge of why certain records sound the way they do, I taught myself how to play instruments, write music and produce. This album is my personal, filtered take on those forms and qualities.

What the artist has envisioned as his project shows throughout the album and what makes it even more personal is Bibio’s increased focus on his vocals more than ever. “Petals” opens the album with a light and fragile melody distorted by fractured sound effects and held together by Bibio’s melancholy vocals. Songs like “Raxiera” and “Town & Country” recall Bibio’s debut Ambivalence Avenue, while remaining hectic and quirky enough to sound fresh and original.

Despite his personal touch, Bibio has chosen a few collaborators to aid him in the making of A Mineral Love such as Gotye, Oliver St. Louis and Wax Stag. Those too are very well thought out. Thematically, “The Way You Talk” is perhaps the most heartfelt and personal track. With vocals by Gotye, this is a beautiful albeit somewhat self-indulgent intimation of affection stiffled by impossible circumstances. The lyrics are broad enough to allow almost everyone to project their own story, while the sustained slow-tempo guitars, synths and vocal echoes give the song a spectral quality.

A different stylistic approach can be heard on the more soulful, groovy tracks like “Feeling” and “Why So Serious?” featuring Olivier St. Louis, but while fun to listen to, they prove difficult to reconcile with the rest of the record. The challenge of making an album like A Mineral Love and what ends up putting a strain on the listener is the apparent stylistic and thematic disparity among most of the songs. It is difficult to draw connection between the songs in a meaningful way that would make them seem more cohesive.This is an amalgamation of great songs that can stand on their own perfectly but a lot seems to be missing when placed side by side. But perhaps we shouldn’t look further for this unifying element when it is Bibio himself and his artistic vision, which should be sufficient when we are presented with an album so masterfully executed.

Get The Album Here: