Caravan Palace is a French musical group that specializes in a niche genre of music known as “electroswing.” This is exactly what it sounds like: 20s-style swing music with elements from other electrical genres.

Caravan Palace released their new album, titled “<|°_°|>” (also called Robot Face) on Oct 16, 2015. While the album sticks to their typical electroswing, it differs greatly from the type of style Caravan Palace usually uses. While their previous albums are known for having rather incomprehensible lyrics and a heavier focus on the swing part of electroswing, <|°_°|> features songs where both lyrics and electrical instruments play major roles. The tracks “Lone Digger” and “Wonderland” are great examples of this.

That is not to say that it is completely unrecognizable as Caravan Palace. <|°_°|> mixes these new styles of songs with others that are more reminiscent of previous Caravan Palace albums. Tracks like “Comics” and “Lay Down” have the distinct heavily filtered and barely comprehensible voices that Caravan Palace’s other albums featured.

Also featured are three distinct music videos, available for viewing on Caravan Palace’s YouTube channel. “Comics” is done in a live-action style with a music video that seems to be an allegory. “Mighty” features robots in many of its scenes, using both Caravan Palace’s hand-built robot mannequins and robots from other films and videos. “Lone Digger” has an animated music video and is, to put it simply, not for the faint of heart.

In sum total, Caravan Palace has something that I appreciate a lot: character. The band stands out among so many other musical artists. This is not just because of the genre they chose to pursue, but also in how they go about pursuing it.

Caravan Palace is far from afraid to have fun with what they do and be silly with some of it. Good examples of this include the music video for “Rock It For Me” (from a previous album, not <|°_°|>) that features humanity building a giant robot to fight off aliens, or simply the title of the track “Human Leather Shoes for Crocodile Dandies.”

I really enjoy Caravan Palace’s music for this reason. I enjoy any piece of media more when I know the creators had fun making it. If you are looking for a new musical experience that is a whole lot of fun, Caravan Palace might be the cure for your troubles.