STRUCTURE MODERNE’s debut album turns post-punk into ritual, literature into rhythm, and chaos into trance

Out April 4, 2025 on Conicle Records, Structure Moderne’s self-titled debut album distills the energy of improvisation and the weight of literary reference into six immersive compositions rooted in transformation.

Built in jam sessions and layered with poetry, noise, and philosophical depth, the record is the result of Paris-based Structure Moderne’s experiments with what they call “post-punk incantation”—a sound that drifts between shoegaze, krautrock, dub, jazz, and noise, while tying it all back to the trance of repetition.

“This music mostly comes from improvisation during jam sessions,” the band says. “Then, as the piece structures, depending on the feelings and representations that it brings to us, we link it with key thematics conveyed in classic books, philosophy essays, poetry…”

Bassist Simon, guitarist Adrien, and vocalist/trumpeter Gil form the core of this cross-generational collective. Their approach is highly stylized: “The bass is put forward and the basis of composition. Repetitive, obsessive lines, but with micro variations that come from the 90s dub culture. The guitar defines the mood—shoegaze, raw, psych… We bring melodica, trumpet and theremin into post-punk. And we try to sing like it was an incantation. Making post-punk into transe.”

That ritualistic angle extends to the album’s thematic core—transformation. “Transformation of literature and poetry into music, obviously,” the band explains, “but also the inner journey that we have throughout life, constantly changing whilst being rooted in our past. It is about the possibilities that change brings.”

Each track expands that idea in a different way. Below is the band’s complete note of intent and commentary for the LP:

GSTQ (God Save The Queen) merges post-punk, krautrock and dub in a trip-hop architecture that evokes the reconstruction after a cataclysm. A bouncy bass pulses ascending dynamics, while ethereal trumpets open epic horizons. Between celebration and irony, the text crosses the incipit of Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D.H. Lawrence with the British anthem, where the “Queen” becomes life itself, reclaiming its rights in subtle strokes before an intensity increase. « We’ve got to live. »

In Badlands, Structure Moderne captures the resonances of an ever-growing hostile world: climate change, armed confl icts, intimate chaos. Saturated psych/shoegaze guitars and minimal rhythms support an abyssal voice, creating an heavy atmosphere, soundtrack of an earth that has become uninhabitable. This hypnotic piece marks a crucial step of a cathartic odyssey, with haunted vocals reminiscent of Alice in Chains. « Something inside you is slowly losing ground… »

Wild Nights aims to decompose and recompose Emily Dickinson’s poem, celebrating erotic power as a refuge and escape towards an infi nite aquatic horizon. The delicate sounds of the instruments, intertwined with captivating vocal harmonies, evoke a dance between the waves and the wind in an intimate and expansive atmosphere. Wild Nights recalls sonic explorations from David Bowie’s Berlin years, while infusing a touch of modernity to immerse the audience
in a universe where the sea becomes a symbol of freedom and desire. The listener is invited to dive into its own desires and embrace the unknown. « Rowing in Eden – Ah – the Sea ! »

Kamalasana is a hypnotic dive into the quest for the spiritual self and the elevation towards an expanded state of consciousness. Its title comes from Sanskrit and refers to a posture of meditation associated with the lotus, symbol of awakening and transformation. Superimposing murmurs, chants and ethereal breaths, Kamalasana oscillates between incantation and polyphony to evoke a form of collective trance. The repetition of melodic patterns like a mantra provokes a feeling of weightlessness and extended resonance, like an echo of the inner silence found again. At the crossroads of psychedelia and ritual infl uences, Kamalasana is not just a musical experience, but a real sensory journey, where letting go becomes the engine of reconciliation with reality. « Namaste. »

The Rush is a shock of raw energy, a piece carried by a vital emergency where the post-punk impetus becomes incandescent. From the fi rst bars, nervous bass and guitar lines trace a continuous line of tension, supported by a frenetic battery pulsating like a heart beating at full speed. Based on The Tempest by Shakespeare, the lyrics are part of this movement and shift dynamic: between trust and betrayal, loss and rebirth, they explore the precise moment when everything can change, when the past dissolves to give way to a frantic acceleration of the present. Oscillating between exaltation and chaos, The Rush captures the moment when we abandon certainties to let ourselves be caught up in the fl ow of life. « The strongest oaths are straw to the fi re I’ the blood. »

Der Wunder Viele closes the album with a liturgical last breath of tension where the poetry and music rise in the same momentum to reach a hypnotic paroxysm. Taken from the poem Der Frühling by Friedrich Hölderlin, the text is declaimed with a ritual intensity, evoking both the fervor of a sermon and the urgency of a manifesto. Based on a repetitive and obsessive bass, the guitars, in suspension, sculpt slowly a spectral space which reminds the experiments of Neu!. The rhythmics, initially minimal, gradually become heavier, evoking an inexorable march towards an imminent revelation. Der Wunder Viele rises like a last sonic ritual, an evocation of the rebirth/destruction cycle, where speech is consumed in the urgency of the moment, like a fl eeting vision of a spring that may never return. « So sind die Zeichen in der Welt… »

 

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The cover art echoes this minimalism: “It’s a simple symbol, both minimalist and rich, as is our music,” they say. “We love architecture, especially how what was once considered modern might feel outdated today, and what was ‘old-fashioned’ might look futuristic. The Bauhaus school is an important part of the LP’s visual identity. Brutalist architecture inspires our visual world.”

Structure Moderne has a Paris release show lined up on April 29, 2025, opening for Eel Men at a gig promoted by La Bagarre Booking. A second date is in the works for Supersonic, and while summer festivals were missed due to timing, the band is actively seeking gigs across France and Europe. “We would love to be opening acts throughout the continent,” they note, citing interest in the UK, Benelux, and Germany in particular. “We will release our own dub remixes of the songs after the summer. We certainly hope to generate expectations for another record, which we plan to record by the end of the year and publish in 2026.”

When asked about other acts they admire or feel aligned with, the band listed:

Labels

• UK labels we love : 4AD, Ninja Tune, Rough Trade, Warp Records…
• We admire the project of MARS RED Sound : French psych band that created their own label and take other bands under their wing

Other

• DesertScene : how we would love to play at one of their events
• La Bagarre Booking : one of our earliest supporters, curating great punk parties
• Supersonic Paris :  One of the last independant rock venues in Paris that support emerging bands.
• International Paris : this venue can’t hold concert anymore because of the need for modernisation, and the political situation in France does not help them get subsidized. It might close and it is a huge shame
• Post In Paris : cool post punk festival in Paris!
• Greyzone Concerts & Promotion: a promoter that we clearly set our eyes on
• Radical Production : very cool roster, organisers of Levitation France Festival
• Meteors : cool punk events in Paris