Opening with the words, “I knew you’d come again,” Bicyclops’ latest single “Fait Accompli” begins with graceful harmonies and progresses through sonic phases like a timelapse of recent history. It carries an air of apocalyptic fantasy that matches the strange place we find ourselves in and features a propeller-like pulse that recalls the drone of machinery stopping and starting. Spanning six minutes and thirty-six seconds, the track is a soundscape of pauses and pivots, bleeding the past into the present while the electronic touches give it a futuristic twist.
Although “Fait Accompli” was born in the heart of the pandemic quarantine, it was founded in pre-lockdown freedom. In 2019, Bicyclops’ Phil J shared a solitary moment with a strange piano in an abandoned U.S. listening post on Teufelsberg in Berlin. The song is built on a recording of a few notes played on that piano. Traversing continental distance, Bicyclops splices together something foreign and something familiar on “Fait Accompli”.
Although the melody turns in and out of itself, experimenting with new levels of distortion in each iteration and adding a depth to the mix, “Fait Accompli” ultimately ends with the opening verse: “I knew you’d come again”. Though unresolved, the track ends with an air of optimism, the reigning voice a familiar one.
While many of us stay close to home as the pandemic goes on, we are far from feeling the comfort of normalcy. The progression of “Fait Accompli” demonstrates the need to adapt to a changing environment, while the instrumental tones remind us where we’ve been and where we need to go.
Demonstrating progression both figuratively and literally, Bicyclops is matching and donating all proceeds from “Fait Accompli” to Across Boundaries, which provides anti-racist mental health and addiction services in Toronto.
