Serguei Spoutnik Released “Transcend”

Serguei Spoutnik is the solo project of Damien Lecoq who previously toured Europe with the band QDRPD. His debut EP, Subject, Verb, Complement, was released in 2020 by Santé Records. The record blended introspective ambient textures, 1980s-inspired synths, and spoken word elements.

Transcend, his new album, is being released today via Independent Practice. It was conceived during a residency in Reykjavik, Iceland. Over the course of seven days, he met seven local artists, each of whom lent him one of their synthesizers for a day. In exchange, he gave them a camcorder, an obsolete model capturing blurry, shaky images reminiscent of childhood memories. These videos, filmed by strangers in a country he barely knew, nourish the album in a singular way. Through their confusion and imperfection, they establish a subtle link to his personal history, where intimacy, past, and present intertwine and transcend one another.

The album explores the bridge between his adolescence in a housing estate in France and his adult life as a queer artist. It examines this path of transformation while highlighting the relationships between different cultural and social spheres.

The album cover, designed by Lukas Persyn, features an antenna sculpture symbolizing this connection, like a transduction device capturing and linking invisible signals. Photographed by Victor Pattyn, the sculpture appears as a strange, almost surreal presence, yet remains seamlessly integrated into an ordinary suburban landscape, resulting in an image that feels both familiar and unsettling.

This new album marks a turning point in his journey. It resonates with his coming out and his life as a queer adult, embodying a form of liberation.

Transcend moves between dream pop, darkwave, downtempo, and ambient. It explores sonic intimacy, the comfort of pop structures, and the search for a singular musical identity through vocals, guitar, and synthesizers. The production was handled by Apollo Noir, with whom he sought to translate this inner quest, balancing the intimate and the universal.