The Salt Collective - Life

An international “supergroup” collaboration between SALT (based in Paris, feat. Stéphane Schuck, Benoit Lautridou, & Fred Quentin) and their guests Matthew Caws (Nada Surf), Juliana Hatfield, Matthew Sweet, Peter Holsapple (The dB’s), Richard Lloyd (Television), Mitch Easter (Let’s Active), Anton Barbeau, The dB’s rhythm section (Gene Holder & Will Rigby), Susan Cowsill, Pat Sansone (Wilco), and newcomer Faith Jones. Produced and guided by Chris Stamey (The dB’s).

“This album was written and composed with a sword of Damocles over my head. A sharp sword. The kind that makes you consider the wind’s caress on your cheek a gift from heaven. That life force has been directly injected into these tracks that you are looking forward to listening to. From this threat came hope, from this threat the music became a wonderful wall. This album is also a tangible proof, if not scientific, at least emotional, that dreams sometimes come true in life. All the fantastic collaborations on this album are a testament to that. Working with such talented people makes you learn and grow. Some say it’s hard to work with people you’ve admired for a long time. Here, it has been an immense pleasure thanks to their humility, their kindness and their competence. We rediscovered with passion the essence of music, a common language, a vector of emotions between human beings.Life goes on, they said. They were right. Life.” – Stéphane Schück

“For aficionados of guitar-based melody and singalong choruses…, …songwriters Schück and Barbeau are plainly incapable of penning anything that doesn’t have hooks….a bucket of the kind of catchy, slightly psychedelic power pop you’d expect from these folks.” – The Big Takeover

“With a lineup like this…you can bet there’s no way things couldn’t sound rather fantastic. XTC, Game Theory, and The Beatles the group’s main influences. Perhaps most surprising is that many of these songs remind us very much of Split Enz (a band whose music we’ve always admired). Schuck’s songs have smooth hummable melodies and cool subtle hooks.” –Baby Sue

“a solid set of lite psychedelia well suited for fans of the Paisley Underground or Dukes of Stratosphear. The harmony-rich mid-tempo procession gives equal play to guitars and keys” –Stomp & Stammer