After a 12 year hiatus Belfast born and bred DJ / producer Phil Kieran is set to revive his Le Carousel project with the release of a new, and final long-player. A collection of cuts, some of which have been incubating since 2019, the album, influenced by Kieran’s work composing for film, is a meditation on human nature. 

Titled “The Humans Will Destroy Us”, lyrically, the set comments on our gift for self and mass destruction, yet seeks to offer some solace and hope. This is achieved largely through the songs’ touching, duetting male and female vocals. These have the feel of a lovers’ conversation put to music, with one voice questioning, worrying, and the other countering, calming, attempting to soothe. This is the record’s soul. This is what makes it stand out. 

The opener, “Light The Flare” is a fine example of this. Mid-tempo, grungy, electro rock’n’roll, with tribal-tinged percussion and a heavy guitar riff, its chorus goes something like this: 

“This ship’s going down, I’m all lost at sea”

“Light the flare, baby, someone will be there”

The second line setting off showers of firework-like sequences. 

“The Good One”, similarly, seems to carry a positive and personal message:

“Life is short, stay with the good one”

While the track is a programmed tumble of Happy Mondays-esque baggy go-go funk. 

“Destroy Us”, a kosmische construction of aching synthetic, symphonic arcs, scratchy guitars and hypnotic express train bass-line, finds the pair confessing complicity. Repeating the title like a mantra in penance. As if calling for some higher power to wipe the slate clean and re-boot Mother Earth. 

“We’re All Gonna Hurt”, while stamping, stomping, urgent and arpeggiated, returns to the sweet and supportive. The lead of “Sooner or later we’re all gonna hurt” answered, by an ethereally whispered “I want to take your pain away”. Transforming the track into a tender trance dance. 

“Everyone’s Gone” is epic, majestic in its melancholy mourning. An electronic procession offset by fragile, reverb-ed fretwork, that hits like New Order meets The Cocteaus.

“Parabolic” and “Rough Ending”, too, both nod toward New Order. Neu! and La Dusseldorf via Manchester. While “Echo Spiegel” graduates from the same sonic school as Andrew Weatherall’s motorik-influenced later work and Andy Bell’s GLOK. 

“Goodbye My Friends” finds Kieran doing his best Brian Wilson. Ringing with echoed 6-strings and multi-tracked vocals, it’s a strange, strung out Beach Boys-esque lullaby. A kissing cousin to Primal Scream’s “Inner Flight” and “Shine Like Stars”. A wall of wobbly synths, twinkling detail, and those whispering lovers, the beautiful, beatless finale “You’re Killing Me Inside” again channels “Screamadelica”, while also  paying homage to The Sabres Of Paradise. 

Throughout the set wears its sentiments proudly, defiantly on its sleeve. Sharing something with local hero David Holmes’ politically charged “Blind On A Galloping Horse”: A heartfelt belief in the power of unity, humanity, in the face of adversity, corruption, evil and greed.

Le Carousel’s The Humans Will Destroy Us can be ordered directly from PKR.