8/10

Mon Rayon's debut album 'Image Repertoire' is built from an unusually wide set of reference points, but its strength lies in how naturally they are made to coexist. Across its twelve tracks, Josef Ask and Christoffer Zetterlund draw on 60s French pop, orchestral arrangements, harpsichord, Scandinavian pop history and the ideas of French semiotician Roland Barthes. On paper, that could easily become overly intellectual or self-conscious. But in practice, the duo keep the emphasis melody, texture and the feeling of two musicians playing together.

Mon Rayon have previously spoken about wanting everything on the record to feel genuinely played rather than assembled, and 'Image Repertoire' benefits greatly from that organic quality. The arrangements are detailed and carefully considered, but they don't feel trapped by their own precision. Strings sweep without overwhelming, baroque touches add colour throughout, and the album’s grandeur remains restrained.

Barthes' idea of the "image-repertoire", the accumulated memories, fantasies and associations through which we understand other people, becomes a useful way of connecting songs drawn from fragments of lived experience. But instead of presenting memory as something reliable, the album appears more interested in the way perception is constantly shaped by what has already happened to us.

Focus track 'All the Living' brings that tension into particularly clear view, as the song examines the gap between recognising what might be good for you and actually allowing yourself to accept it. Pride, fear and self-awareness become barriers to intimacy, creating the uncomfortable situation of understanding your own behaviour without necessarily being able to change it.

There's also this warmth throughout the record, but it rarely feels uncomplicated. Mon Rayon balance elegance with uncertainty, allowing moments of brightness to sit alongside doubt, distance and projection; resulting in a debut that feels considered without becoming rigid.

In all, 'Image Repertoire' works well because its ideas never overwhelm its humanity. Beneath the literary references and carefully constructed arrangements are just two musicians trying to understand how memory shapes the way we love, remember and misread one another.