Étendard noir

Synthwave / Retrowave / Trip-Hop

July 2026 - Instrumental

Étendard noir — "black banner" in french — is Ubaye's sixth album and a deliberate swerve: darker, synthwave- and retrowave-leaning, steeped in cyberpunk imagery. It's the first record in the catalogue that sounds explicitly like a genre statement rather than a place or a memory.

It opens on Pluie noire, the heaviest, most bass-driven track on the album — a proper storm to set the mood, all low end and weight. Kuro (Japanese for "black," a small callback to Ubaye's earlier Japan-inflected records) lightens the texture into something glassier, and Coronado pushes further into bright, glowing synth territory. Jukebox leans hard into the retro concept, one of the shiniest, most neon-lit tracks here, and Secret keeps that polished sheen going.

Chrome is the most literally named track on the album and sounds like it — the brightest, most metallic texture yet, all reflective surfaces. Pris nods unmistakably to Blade Runner's replicant of the same name, sitting in warmer, mid-toned territory rather than pure shine, while Pôle position and Femme fatale both hit some of the highest, most piercing brightness on the record — one an arcade-racing rush, the other a cool, noir archetype rendered in synth. Horizon opens the frame back out, calmer and more spacious.

1983 functions as the record's explicit thesis statement — bright, driving, unmistakably retro by name and by sound, and one of the more energetic mid-album moments. Silhouette pulls back into something moodier and more restrained, and Safari is the darkest, warmest interlude on the whole album, a genuine dip into shadow before the record's real climax: Rafale — a gust of wind, and true to its name, the loudest and brightest combined moment on the record, a real burst of intensity. Nexus keeps that digital energy humming afterward, before Pégase pulls everything back down into the darkest, most mythic register on the album — winged and shadowed rather than triumphant.

Then, unexpectedly, the record closes on Ballerine — the single brightest, most shimmering track on the entire album, by a wide margin. After fifty minutes of chrome, rain, and neon, ending on a ballerina is a genuinely striking choice: something delicate and graceful set against everything dark that came before it, like a single spotlight left on after the black banner has been lowered.

Structurally, this is Ubaye's most dynamically extreme record — it doesn't ease between moods so much as swing hard between them, dark opener to shimmering closer, with Rafale as its loud, driving center of gravity and Safari as its one true retreat into shadow along the way.

Tracklisting:

1 - Pluie noire

2 - Kuro

3 - Coronado

4 - Jukebox

5 - Secret

6 - Chrome

7 - Pris

8 - Pôle position

9 - Femme fatale

10 - Horizon

11 - 1983

12 - Silhouette

13 - Safari

14 - Rafale

15 - Nexus

16 - Pégase

17 - Ballerine

Album cover: composite image of science-fiction and cyberpunk town and stylized in a cartoon manner.