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Dean Van Nguyen is deep in the Parisian garage sale scene.
Charif Megarbane is a man of many robes. His productivity rates must surely qualify as a superpower—the yield of his output more typically associated with studio-loitering rappers or 90 percent free throw shooters. Just take a look at the Bandcamp page for his one-man label Hisstology. It boasts dozens and dozens of albums across Megarbane’s many monikers, each record adorned with old-fashioned covers, so the collection resembles a 1970s vinyl rack. It’s all here: grubby funk LPs, nimble acoustic guitar recordings, 1970s-style cinema scores, gritty free jazz, beat tapes that bow down to Madlib, plus more. Not everything there is coated in gold, which is fine—that’s the inevitable consequence of relentless music making. But Megarbane’s intense creativity and idiosyncratic tendencies are typically associated with eccentric genius. For beginners, I recommend starting with Les Sourdes Oreilles, released under the name Cosmic Analogue Ensemble—perhaps his most potent moniker.
Most of Megarbane’s projects follow a one-man band ethos but Heroes & Villains represents the Lebanese virtuoso’s collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Proville and drummer Dom Salahem. The group was forged in the fire of the Montreal scene about a decade and a half ago, right when bands like Arcade Fire and Black Empire roamed the city. But Heroes & Villains soon splintered, with Salameh sticking around in Montreal, Proville heading to New York, and Megarbane spending the majority of his time in Nairobi (though he’s currently pitched up in Lisbon). The trio’s music is recorded separately and beamed to each other via online portals.
Whatever the process behind its creation, El Condor Aparece is one of the finest albums to have Megarbane’s name stamped on the credits. This is music with all the allure of a black and white French movie you flick on at 2am and end up watching to the end. It dabbles in throwback Parisian pop, soft AM radio rock, grimy soul, and far-out psych, all with a gloriously unprocessed feel as the instrumentation feels fresh and vibrant. There’s a warmth to the album—a feeling of intimacy—that defies the fact that it was recorded with huge distances separating the three members. I’ve continuously found myself going back to the record in recent weeks when I’m not sure what I want to listen to. I am hooked.
It might take some time to tune your ears to El Condor Aparece. As a frontman, Megarbane’s bulky-voiced croons—heavily doused in echoing effects—make for an unusual instrument. He is never going to be a powerhouse singer, but the oddness of the delivery as he inelegantly blasts out pop melodies is very charming. Take “Could It Be Like The First Time Again?” The song could be a lost 7-inch single cut in the 1960s and recently mined from a Paris garage sale. The playful organ chords that fuel the melody skip alongside the peppy drums as a lovesick Megarbane tunes his voice to a desperate low rumble. It’s a number that encapsulates the album’s infectious eccentricities.
There are other historic touching points. The hook of “The Rest is History” evokes memories of “All The Young Dudes,” while “Magical Woman” sounds inspired by the kind of love interest that sparked Fleetwood Mac’s Peter Green to write “Black Magic Woman.” Whether or not they’re loving homages or accidental throwbacks that stem from the group’s appreciation of old cloaks, I cannot say. Either way, these are tracks that sound blessed by the spirit of their forefathers.
Heroes & Villains benefit from Salahem’s drumming, which has a briskness suitable to the record’s strong pop inclinations. Both Proville and Megarbane are credited as utilizing about a dozen instruments each—that the borders of their contributions are impossible to define embodies the group’s chemistry. Still, this is Megarbane’s barbecue and it tastes good. His handprints are all over these arrangements: The orchestration on spoken word track “3298-3299” feels in-line with the trippy funk workouts he’s deployed in the past and, if such a thing can exist for an artist of such prolificity, one of the strongest ripples of Cosmic Analog Ensemble’s sonic blueprint. Most impressively, El Condor Aparece proves that even the man who makes albums as frequently as you or I go to the movies can construct full-lengths that congeal into masterful works.
