Exclusive: Click above to see Rollercone perform his album live
Some two years in the making, Rollercone's debut album is a thoughtful, warm and textured offering.
The soulful grooves kick-in immediately with the atmospheric opening bars of 'Nothing Can Stop Us Now', a house sermon delivered by Jacob Eggay, Rollercone's key collaborator on this release.
From here the album builds through 'Quietstorm' to the gloriously emotional 'When You Left', which features the other main collaborator, Oliver Portal, on keyboards.
'J'Avance' sees French vocalist Marie Beatrice join the line up and, rippling with percussion, is far closer to Rollercone's earlier offerings. This in turn paves the way for the carnival wig out of the superb Latin-esque broken beat of 'Me Gusta'.
On 'My Life' Eggay returns to duet with Yvonne John Lewis for a light funky house jam, while 'Nightdreaming' strips the beats away to reveal haunting, desolate back drop. This blends seemlessly into 'Daydreaming', which gradually feeds Doome's percussion into the mix, arching the track back into the deep four to the floor party.
On 'Joy' Rollercone releases the kick drum to shudder through the rhythm pattern, playing across the click track of hand claps, while 'Detends-toi' again drops the tempo to whisper ambient jazz over Marcello Giuliani's soft plucked upright bass. Which leaves the low, blunt groove of Eggay's free roaming vocals on 'Searching' to round off the package.
Although often lumped in with French deep house artists, such as Alex Kid and Llorca, with whom he admittedly has a lot in common musically, Rollecone, aka Patrick Duvoisin, actually comes from Switzerland and has adopted London as his home.
Whether his origins have any impact on his music is of course conjecture, but, with its churning beats and plaintive chords, there is a sense of travel, or travelling, that runs through the album, like a sound track to some pan European train journey.
And like a Bordeaux wine, the album's complexity and character has undoubtedly been improved by its long gestation. Bubbling with warm raspberry fruit and subdued spice, Rollercone's debut long player is a fine vintage drawn from an impeccable pedigree. Bienvennue La Musique de la Maison.
