ARBRE, Wrap a Tear in Cellophane

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ARBRE: WRAP A TEAR IN CELLOPHANE

all compositions by ARBRE

RON 048, 2026

The clock won't stop   7:44

Thin walls   5:23

The shore   7:50

Was it real?   4:16

Je suis la nuit   5:12

Over and over   6:55

Arrimée à la brise   4:40

 

Paul Butscher flugelhorn, voc, synth

Mélusine Chappuis keys, voc, electronics

Xavier Almeida drums

 

Recorded September 2025 by Antoine Estoppey at Blend Studio, Lutry

Mix Valentin Liechti

Master Frida Claeson Johansson

Composition/Arrangement ARBRE

Produced by ARBRE & Nik Bärtsch

Publishing Ronin Rhythm Productions & Neonstars Publishing

Executive Producers ARBRE & Nik Bärtsch

Artwork & Graphics Fanny Geiser

Photo Mei Fa Tan

 

ARBRE is a collective consisting of three focused musicians: Mélusine Chappuis sings and plays keyboards, Paul Butscher sings, plays flugelhorn and keys, and Xavier Almeida plays drums. The three are constantly evolving, both individually and as a band, as their album history already documents. Their clear and airy sound is underpinned by clever grooves and compact interplay. Despite its lightness, the music becomes dense, raw, intricate and touching. The fragility of the tracks and songs is given solid roots, anchored in the depths of the sea: they form a mysterious and precise ecosystem of sound and groove.

The instrumentation carefully balances analogue and electronic elements. The vocals alternate between English and French, coming from two different places, both stylistically and emotionally. ARBRE's rhythms are multi-layered, and the melodies are clear and purposeful, with an indie pop flair.

 

There is much to discover on ARBRE's third album, ‘Wrap a Tear in Cellophane’, its cosmos being carefully developed by the band over a long period of time. Despite all its energy, the music addresses human fragility and develops a precise yet relaxed, instinctive power.

ARBRE does not present its musical language as art for art's sake, but rather to convey a message: community and compassion are essential for coexistence on the planet. ARBRE works explicitly as a collective, in which all decisions, whether artistic or otherwise, are made jointly by all members. The decision to think and act together is an essential and consequential value that the three musicians consciously cultivate, demonstrating that making music together clearly transcends the individual and can unleash a greater power.

 

WRAP A TEAR IN CELLOPHANE ist die 48. Veröffentlichung des Labels Ronin Rhythm Records, einer Plattform für neue kreative Musik zwischen New Minimal, Funk und Ritual Groove Music.

I don’t know exactly what mangroves are, but I venture into them anyway.

 

This ecosystem is dense - raw - intertwined

at first almost scary.

 

Getting lost every now and then is comforting.

Especially when one gets lost in the unknown.

Getting lost in these mangroves is comforting, and the deeper I go, the more something begins to feel familiar.

 

I know that mangroves are plant weaves

Trees rooted in air.

 

The collective ARBRE appears as I know it

but the sound matures

the textures grow denser

more granular

more organic

just as one might reasonably expect

from a band of three gentle spirits in perpetual motion who

— logically, in hindsight —

release their new record on

Ronin Rhythm Records.

 

“The loudest words in the room are the ones that are not being said,”

says T. Waits about the latest film by J. Jarmusch,

a film that speaks about family.

I spent about a hundred Mondays

listening to the concerts of the founder of RRR and mentor of ARBRE, Nik Bärtsch,

and now, while listening to ARBRE’s new record, I sense familiarity.

 

This familiarity

I believe

arises precisely from silences

from the notes that are not being played.

 

In ARBRE’s music I find

geometric forms

and a carefully weighed delicacy

in every sound.

 

In Wrap a Tear in a Cellophane

ARBRE tells us many things

through spacious yet compact music

music that is gentle yet in perpetual motion.

 

ARBRE tells us much through a musical language that is the intelligible continuation

of the one developed in their previous music from Lunaires and Mes épaules seront rivières.

 

They tell us much through the (musical) themes of space and the dream world.

They tell us much through their familiar instrumentation and considerably more voice,

which communicates

through sporadic yet articulated lyrics in French and English lyrics that speak of space:

of the space between sleep and wakefulness

of the space between emptiness and fullness

of the space between those who are together

of the emptiness between those who have separated

from others

or from themselves.

 

The record begins with The Clock Won’t Stop

and ends (or perhaps not, precisely) with

Over and Over.

I interpret this — perhaps unconscious — message with great pleasure

as the will to search and to refine

that the collective ARBRE continues to display with its third album.

 

In this record I hear two intertwined feelings:

on the one hand

an inner fragility

that emerges as an entirely natural content of being human

a fragility that surfaces from the very first track

as one enters the mangroves.

 

On the other hand

I hear deep and solid roots

“underwater roots”

anchored in the core of a sonic ecosystem

that is mysterious and exceedingly precise.

 

Fragility and roots do not surprise me

when they emerge together in a work of art.

Strange — or rather incomplete — would be

fragility without roots.

 

In this work by ARBRE

grows an experience that is almost botanical

which - from a dark and deep place -

seeks sources of light

and in the end

finds them.

 

Release Text: Elia Fonti