The origin story of Christine and the Queens involves the loneliness inflicted by a double cleaving. In 2010, Héloïse Letissier, a twenty-two-year-old from Nantes, was expelled from a theatre conservatory in Paris on the heels of a disorienting breakup. He made his way to London and stumbled one night into the legendary Soho club Madame Jojo’s.
Letissier’s early work established a maximalist production style: large splashes of electronic sound, swelling arrangements. A follow-up album in 2018, “Chris,” conjured memories of eighties pop, from Madonna’s “Lucky Star” to Michael Jackson’s most opulent hits. That album also introduced a new version of Letissier, who now wore his hair shorn and went by Chris. Where the début was warm and tender, “Chris” was defined by machismo and eroticism, a relentless pursuit of physicality.
As on “Redcar,” Letissier worked on “P.A.T.L.” with Mike Dean, a pop producer known for collaborations with the likes of Kanye West, Beyoncé, and Madonna. Dean set up a studio in Letissier’s home, in L.A., and had him record his vocals in single takes just after waking up in the morning. This process helps lend the album a dreamlike feel, as if Letissier were guiding the listener from one somnambulation to the next.
The album’s three movements are not rigorously defined; a listener probably wouldn’t be able to delineate them without studying the track list. But there is a claustrophobia to some of the songs in the first section—like the brilliantly messy “Track 10,” featuring eleven minutes of cascading yells and crashing drums—that lets up as the album continues.