We have occasionally featured a dark, Gothic female Swedish artist, Memoria, who is actually Tess de la Cour.
So I wondered if she might be related to Henric de la Cour. His artist name in a similar vein would be Memorium or Memoriam if my Latin is up to it, which doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it?
As it happens they were a married couple, now sadly divorced.
Henric (or Paul Henric Dornonville de La Cour to give him his full title) is back on the scene as a solo artist after an absence of six years following the album ‘Gimme Daggers’ and he has also been touring Europe recently supporting the Swedish synth pop duo Kite. (He’ll be doing more touring of Sweden in 2025 but we don’t know of any foreign dates apart from one in Oslo.
And Henric certainly has history – no less than 30 years in the business during which time he has released three solo albums and six as a member of other bands – while also finding time to star in a biopic documentary.
Having already released one comeback single, ‘Hey you, Hell no’, he is now gearing up towards his next album, ‘My Bones, your Ashes, which is scheduled for 31st January 2025, with this single, ‘Interlude’.
I reckon that from these titles alone you’re already getting an idea of his style and it is not dissimilar to that of Memoria, being highly atmospheric in a melancholic way, with ample use of synthesisers offering melodies that at times in contrast aren’t too far away from the dance floor. I’d be inclined to dub them ‘death disco’ if it wasn’t for the fact that catchphrase has already been patented by the Swedish duo KÅRP.
Memoria chops and changes her way through songs and Henric is no different. ‘Interlude’ starts off with what sounds like a metronome that someone forgot to turn off, develops into a pleasant little synth pop tune that could have been lifted straight out of the 80s (think someone like Howard Jones), then suddenly goes off at a tangent into a section that might suggest Armageddon or some other similar disaster.
Then it exits into another – triumphant – one of mainly strings content that evokes an image of escaping from something – the Earth’s atmosphere; a volcanic eruption; a comet heading straight for us, which plays out the track.
Unfortunately I can’t discuss the lyrical content as I can’t access them and I can’t make some of them out, but musically it makes its mark for sure.
It would be both easy and lazy to start comparing him with, say Jean Michel Jarre or M83 (although I have to say the final grand chord is very M83-like). Henric isn’t quite in that Premier League but (a) very few are and (b) he isn’t that far away from it either.
And ultimately it wasn’t anything like as dispiriting as I’d expected. In fact it’s quite uplifting.
Find him on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HenricDLC
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/henricdelacour/
