I AM STRAMGRAM has found the right balance in the studio and created a wide - r eaching yet intimate LP. This paradox could only have been achieved with the craftsmanship and sensitivity of the singer Vincent Jouffroy, also the sole songwriter on the album. Surrounded by many musician friends, I AM STRAMGRAM released his first album ( Le Patchworkitch Triptyque) as a collage of EPs and multimedia productions. His earlier work was in the form of elegant folk - styled music which put soaring lyrics into a minimalist setting. During his musical odyssey, Vincent evokes the characters of Joh n Fante (‘Camilla’) and the novel Karoo (‘Saut de ligne’), he loses himself in a Richard Serra sculpture (‘Serra’s Snake’), remembers the solitude of childhood (‘Pack Your Toys’) and returns to adult life with ‘Empty House’, and brings about the end of the world in ‘Underwater Tank’ to build a better one in a multitude of images and ramifications, sounds, periods and sensations. The album is an impressionist kaleidoscope of 9 songs that tell the story of paradise lost and ancestral joy, escape and lines, fu llness and emptiness, everything that goes through Vincent’s head without being able to explain it but still it creates this beautiful unity. Essentially, the LP is a little part of himself, and it is a part that puts I AM STRAMGRAM in the very closed ci rcle of modern songwriters
