La grande évasion - The Offline

Hamburg-based multi-instrumentalist and producer The Offline announces his second full-length album, La grande évasion, via DeepMatter Records. Translating to 'The Great Escape,' the album is a richly textured instrumental journey—a genre-defying ode to discovery, imagination, and the urge to drift beyond borders both real and imagined.

Originally envisioned as a 70s sci-fi concept album about a spaceship venturing into deep space, 'La grande évasion' evolved into something more intimate yet equally expansive. While the interstellar themes remain in spirit, the music instead traces a different kind of voyage; one grounded in memory, photography, place, and inner travel.

“Although the songs felt like a journey, they didn’t sound like science fiction,” says The Offline. “But I realised the core idea — of setting off, of seeking out new worlds — is still there. I’ve always been drawn to water, to the sea, and the idea of creating sonic spaces that transport you somewhere else. That’s the kind of escape I’m interested in.”

Woven through the album are glints of 70s Anatolian rock, soul, surf, lo-fi beats, and psychedelic jazz. Each track is a postcard from a different scene, a different feeling.

Opening single 'Boulevard National' is a vibrant tribute to one of Marseille’s most energetic streets — a multicultural artery that left a deep impression on The Offline during the filming of his Les Cigales EP. Inspired by the textures of Anatolian psych and West Coast surf, the song channels the pulse of a city alive with contrast and character.

The artist’s love of analogue photography seeps through the record, most clearly in 'Nikonos V', a breezy, groove-laced track named after the waterproof film camera that accompanies him on coastal explorations — and which captured the album’s cover photos. The song glides with a warmth reminiscent of Khruangbin, Offthewally, and Tommy Guerrero, evoking sun-faded days and snapshots preserved on grainy 35mm.

Things turn stranger and more surreal on 'Le trip', a woozy, breakbeat-flecked journey featuring a soaring saxophone improvisation by Kimo Eiserbeck. Somewhere between boom-bap and vintage Japanese jazz-funk, it imagines a psychedelic detour through sound - “Ever licked a toad in the jungle?” asks The Offline. “Me neither, but this is what I think it would feel like.”

The emotional centerpiece of the album is “La belle en lumière”, a romantic and delicate ballad that builds from soft Rhodes chords and a steady drum groove into sweeping horn-led drama.

“It’s inspired by the perfect light that every photographer longs to capture — that fleeting moment of beauty, suspended in time.”

Throughout 'La grande évasion', The Offline balances escapism with intimacy, composing not just beats or vignettes, but miniature soundtracks for imagined scenes. It’s a record that invites the listener to drift, to dream, to escape... even if just for a moment.