in terms of trilogies, the second entries are usually the best. obviously, we can talk about The Empire Strikes Back, and how it ends on a sour note for our heroes. or we can talk about how the expanded breadth of The Godfather Part II made it even better than the already-classic Part I (do not @ me). we can relitigate The Dark Knife or Blade II or Before Sunset or Spiderman 2 or The Two Towers or X-2. i’ll even fight for “Heroes” standing as the best of Bowie’s Berlin triptych, or Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs standing even higher than Swordfishtrombones, or in Blur’s “Life Trilogy”, can you argue that Parklife comes second to Modern Life is Rubbish or The Great Escape? you get the point. seconds are good.
[read the original album profile of Sans Soleil here]
so it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that Sans Soleil is not only the album of the month, but maybe the album of Ceschi’s career. as Ceschi begins to let the sun set on his discography — this year’s Sad Fat Luck trilogy is meant to be his last as a solo artist — it is thrilling to see an album so fervently refuse to rest. go ahead and quote that one Dylan Thomas villanelle you know. so while we know the end is near, Sans Soleil is the work of an artist furiously working to say everything, to make sure nothing at all is left on the table when the lights go out. and that yearning, that struggle, that desperation, has resulted in an album that is gloriously scattered. at 21 tracks, Sans Soleil is filled to the brim with ideas, some of them absolutely contradictory: a folk-inflected ballad is shoulder-to-shoulder with a hip-hop track complete with an all-star cast, and that song is next to a stripped back acoustic cover of Britney Spears, which is next to a track with a reggaeton beat, which is next to a jazzy interstitial.
so while Sans Soleil is an exhilarating experience, it’s bittersweet. “1988” or “incesticide” are just as good as music gets, but we can see the sun quickly fading behind the horizon. as the overtures of the final track, “Capsize”, play on, we’re aware that there’s just one more of these albums left. after that, Ceschi will close the door, seal it shut, and let these albums stand as a finished, completed artifact. he’ll move to the west coast, start a new career, and this piece of him will burn bright, fueling itself. and you and me, we can revisit it, knowing how the story finishes (when the final piece of the trilogy is released later this year), the same way that we still excitedly watch the siege of Helm’s Deep, or Vito Corleone’s rise to power, or Luke Skywalker confront his father. but until then, we can listen to Sans Soleil knowing that we’re hearing an artist rage, rage against the dying light.
