I'm not particularly good at French, but I am glad that my understanding of the title, Petites Perceptions was apparently correct, which according to the album description, means "small perceptions". More specifically, the title is referring to small events in our lives that we barely notice, like the valve of a bicycle wheel stopping vertically, or a train bell ringing in tune with a busker on the platform. The latter of which I think I always would appreciate and notice, but it's a fun thing to mention.
The album itself is a series of 15 small compositions each clocking in at under three minutes, with several being shorter than two. As you might expect, this ends up feeling like set of ideas, with some more fleshed out, complete, and memorable than others. The opening track, Una, is just one-and-a-half minutes long but does a good job at setting the tone. Its cold and spooky industrial ambience feeling like dripping factory pipes in the distance. This is followed by Yerku - spookier, colder, but prettier at the same time, and at this point I was quite excited to listen to the rest of the album.
As I mentioned, the album feels like a set of ideas, and so my excitement was perhaps a little misplaced. The first half of the album is pretty great. From the echoing guitar of Quatre, to the big sweeping synths of Papale and the cracky piano recording of Huit, I was really enjoying it. However, it does start to run out of steam in the back half.
I think there's a clear line where this happens, too, and it's the 9th track entitled Nove (it's occurring to me now that perhaps these are all numbers). The track is loud, not noisy but loud in the Rick Rubin sense, and it feels slightly obnoxious to listen to. It has a very new-age flavour to it, too, which personally isn't to my taste. What a relief, then, when the glitchy Sebelas comes in and it's about as far removed from that as possible.
The album closes with Hamalau, one of the stronger tracks and also the longest at 2:57, and overall it was a pretty good listening experience. I think albums like this are tricky to pull off, and while I wish a couple tracks had been omitted, it's pretty clear to me that Tangram is a very talented composer, with the best compositions giving a real sense of place.