Behind the Niicap project lie seven years of production, demos left on the shelf and tracks that mostly answered what was expected of him. With “Vulnerable”, released on 4 September, the French producer goes the other way and delivers his very first EP.
Sometimes the hardest thing is to go against what people expect of you and follow your heart. That’s what you hear on these six tracks, where nothing is left to chance: unusual structures, genres that cross paths, as on “Somebody” and its edgy flow set between melodic house and indie-pop.
The record was built in public, one single every two months since February. “Can’t Give It Up”, with Berlin’s ARI., opened the series on enveloping synths. “Cry When You’re Not Listening” then let Andrea Hamilton say the unsayable, before “Want You” set desire free, carried by Florian Lheureux’s guitars.
That leaves the two unreleased tracks, and this is where the record really comes into its own. The title track is an instrumental carried by a spoken monologue on love and loss, placed at the centre of the EP as a turning point. “Meant To Be”, with Patrick Aretz, closes things on a hopeful note: everything falls apart, then everything falls back into place.
The EP is available on all streaming platforms.
