REVIEW: Le Volume Courbe—Planet Ping Pong (2025)
A weird and occasionally wonderful collection, featuring a whole host of music legends.
I’m not sure why an album mastered in February 2018 has taken over seven years to come out, but in the interim, two of its collaborators, Martin Duffy and Terry Hall, have sadly passed away. Whatever the story is there, nobody’s going into it. Best not to ask.
Regardless, Stereolab’s Duophonic Super45 label has graciously put this weird and often wonderful collection of tunes from French singer songwriter Charlotte Marionneau.
You might dimly recall that Noel Gallagher once had a scissor player in his High Flying Birds lineup. Well, this is said scissor player. She’s put out a couple of albums over the past 20 years, but appears to only be able to release them when there is a 5 in the year. 2005, 2015…and now 2025. Coincidence? Anything’s possible. The attentive among you will note that several of these songs came out in 2020, making this album’s late late arrival even more of a puzzle.
But never mind. It’s here now, and you can spin the vinyl on your turntable and enjoy the permanence of physical media: at least until the 750 copies reportedly pressed all sell out and you suffer the endless terror of FOMO.
If, like me, you were never aware of the likes of Fourteen Years, and Mind Contorted being released nearly five years ago, then their belated arrival on an album is but a mere detail.
One of the most interesting things about this rather niche release is just how many major league collaborators Charlotte has managed to rope in for the album. For one thing, the aforementioned Noel Gallagher features on two of the 11 tracks, and even writes one of them (Alone On The Ropes), though doesn’t actually play on it. The other ones, Two-Love has Noel on bass and piano, while the lovely breezy campfire tune Mind Contorted has Noel playing two guitars, while the dearly departed legend Terry Hall sings along, and former Weller key collaborator Brendan Lynch mixes it.
But it doesn’t end there, with Primal Scream guitarist Andrew Innes popping up on Two-Love, and Primal Scream keyboardist, the late Martin Duffy doing piano on the bonkers Duffy & Mr Seagull, a track entirely centered around saying hello to a seagull, and the seagull politely talking back and (accidentally) poignantly asking Martin Duffy if he’s “flying high now,” rather than simply nabbing the sandwich he’d just got out of the packet. This is indeed the kind of nonsense you have to deal with on this record, but it’s somewhat charming nonsense.
It’s a hotpotch to say the least. We get incongruous cover versions (Phil Spector’s To Know Him Is To Love Him pops up, as does an oddball Nico track Reve Reveiller) alongside Two-Love, a song about Ping Pong.
At times, you start to question your own sanity for putting up with it, but there’s a sweet charm to the whole endeavour, and the fact it’s quite unlike anything you’ll hear this year makes it an unlikely repeat listen.
Key tracks for me are, unsurprisingly, the more conventional ones. Noel’s Alone On The Ropes is plainly quite gorgeous, featuring Oasis and High Flying Birds keyboardist Mikey Rowe on four different keyboards. Opener Fourteen Years has that effortless French cool about it, and the sweetness of The Moon Song is irresistible. The strummy Bag Of Excuses also has a simplicity and charm in spades. You can hear why people want to work her songs into shape. There’s magic about them.
But the weird does threaten to overtake the project at times. MRI Song (perhaps a heavy clue as to why the album took so long to appear) is fearsome noise, and closing spoken word track Planet Ping Pong is simply there to bookend proceedings. You’re left with a handful of great tracks, two inessential covers, and some filler. After a decade since the last record, you might reasonably expect a bit more substance, but I guess just be grateful for what’s here and enjoy a weird and (periodically) wonderful ride. See you again in 2035.
