Crayon - Home Safe (Erased Tapes)[Nu-Soul]

The Slow Music Movement
Dec 4, 2025
1 min read

*** This blog post first appeared in TSMM's November 26th Newsletter, where you can get all the tips (and more) first ***

The cover for Crayon's Home Safe album, showing three figures in white suits sit at a round table with tall paper hats. The setting is minimalistic and monochromatic, creating a surreal mood.

The Erased Tapes label are on a “good” rather than a genre specific music mission, and the fact that it’s been working well for them for almost twenty years gives me hope for TSMM’s future, but even I was surprised by the eclectic soul meets cultured alt-pop of Crayon.

Apparently he’s something of a go to guy for French rappers but he’s really stretched out on Home Safe which has its origins in Sunday music, dance and visual art jam sessions held in a shared Paris apartment, and how I would have liked to have been there wielding a paint brush and tambourine, though if I’d have made the album is another matter.

French producer Crayon with a beard in a beanie and open shirt holds a large, V-shaped sculpture in a studio. Black and white, contemplative mood.

There’s a ton of musicians and vocalists involved - one of the joys of Tidal is the credits sub-menu, and a serious soulful thread runs throughout. There’s classical passages and strings galore, trip hop rubs shoulders with alt-pop and jazz and folk flourishes are never far away. Despite the myriad influences Crayon manages to pick up the thread like a boss, find the common ground in the jam session whimsy, ditch the filler, keep the killer and stitch it all together into a surprisingly stripped back soulful offering that could only come from someone who’s a time served and talented producer.