“D” like deconstruction. “E” like Everett. One might have thought Mark Oliver was blackening the last pages of his twenty-year-old alphabet book with the introspective The Cautionary Tales Of Mark Oliver Everett, released in 2014. Four years have gone by. And unsurprisingly for this twelfth chapter, the hypersensitive artist with a coral voice has composed an absolute gem. A fine and beautiful showpiece. With folk embroideries, arranged pop, hemstitched silences (Premonition) and sensual strings (The Epiphany), The Deconstruction oscillates back and forth between emotional auroras (Be Hurt) and scruffy rock trepidations (Today Is The Day, You're The Shining Light). To top it off, the multi-instrumentalist surrounded himself with great talent and met up with long-time collaborators in the Compound Studios, in California: bassist and keyboarder Koool G Murder (Kelly Logsdon) and P-Boo (Mike Sawitzke), as well as the Deconstruction Orchestra & Choir, and Mickey Petralia, who also worked on Electro-Schock Blues (1998). Seemingly disjointed, the fifteen tracks that make up the album roll out between lavish orchestrations filled with flutes, organs and keyboards, and bare segments for lyrical declamations (Archie Goodnight), arranging the musical space, accommodating instrumental pauses (The Quandary, The Unanswerable). All for a gracious and optimistic result! © Charlotte Saintoin/Qobuz