Good Faith (Madeon album)

Leclercq is adept in various vocal processing techniques. He uses them throughout his past releases as well as in Good Faith. In many of the album's tracks, Leclercq most notably uses vocal chopping on R&B style vocals in "Dream Dream Dream", "Nirvana" and "Be Fine", as well as chopping his own vocals in "Miracle".[10] Another technique carried over into the album from previous releases like "Shelter", "Beings", and "Zephyr", is Leclercq's liberal use of "formant shifting". This technique shifts peaks in a frequency spectrum to adjust the "openness" of the human voice. This causes Leclercq's voice to sound significantly more or less deep(e.g. in "No Fear No More", "Be Fine") while still singing the same pitch. Leclercq also processes his voice using a pitch correction software to a more distinct degree in Good Faith than in "Shelter" or any tracks off of Adventure.[11]

He also employs classic house music techniques like kick drum side-chaining, which is heavily used in "Mania". He also uses fast arpeggiation with little attack in most of the tracks to add "flutter". He utilizes classic nu-disco and French house style bass-lines, clap patterns, and synth sounds, reminiscent of Leclercq's signature sound from previous releases as exemplified in "No Fear No More" and "All My Friends".[12]

Good Faith consists of ten tracks. This is significantly less than his previous album, but Leclercq defends this by saying that he thinks of the ten tracks and surrounding production more like an era than an album. He says that, even after the album's release, "there'll be more Good Faith."[3]

Leclercq says that the theme of the album is about a person's love, questioning, and relationship to reality, and the validity of emotion with the benefit of positive hindsight.[2] He also has said that his mood, mental health and questioning his own joy and enthusiasm have been heavy themes that he wanted to impress into the album.

Similarly to what he did with Adventure, Leclercq makes a point to hide messages, objects, and code into his album designs and songs, in order to make something that's "worth being a fan of".[8] This was exemplified best during the release of the limited edition "All My Friends" vinyl record at specific record stores in the cities in which he had spent time producing Good Faith. This was meant as a scavenger hunt for fans, as he did not specify where the record stores were, and only had eight records pressed, two per store.[13]

The second track on the album, "All My Friends", was released as the first single in May 2019. Leclercq states that, of the whole album, "All My Friends" is "the most directly and structurally pop song. It's a fun statement to start a campaign with the most confidently pop song." Leclercq considers the track to be an homage to all of his favorite pop music. He compares the release of this track as the first single of Good Faith to fellow French DJ/producers Daft Punk's release of "One More Time", the first single off of 2001's Discovery.[7]

Leclercq has said that some tracks, like "Dream Dream Dream" were completed early on during production of the album, but held off on releasing them in order to connect all aspects of the album thematically and under one vision.[14]

Leclercq began planning and designing art for Good Faith as early as 2015.[8] The final artwork is a filtered photo of Leclercq. The filter is a photo negative that has its highlights color shifted to green, mid-tones shifted blue, and shadows shifted red. This filter is also used on many of the promotional art, music videos, and single cover art for Good Faith, sometimes varying the colors and shifting between a photo negative and photo positive.

After the release of each single, Leclercq uploaded both an official audio video and an official music video to his YouTube channel. On 30 July 2020, Leclercq released a video for "Miracle" starring Maisie Williams and directed by Lena Headey.

On 29 May 2019 Leclercq released a preview of "All My Friends", his first single since "Shelter". This preview was released through a new website, goodfaith.world,[15] which contained a video[16] that played the song, along with locations of record stores in four cities: Los Angeles, New York, Ålesund, and Nantes. Each record store was issued two copies of the new single on clear 7" vinyl. On 30 May 2019, the full official audio was released on YouTube.[17]

On 10 July 2019, Leclercq premiered the first episode of Good Faith Radio (Beats 1 Radio on Apple Music),[18] where he debuted Good Faith's second single, "Dream Dream Dream", and played tracks by other artists, including music sent by his fans accompanied by fan-made art. He described the radio show as "...a space I want us to share, I want to introduce you to my favorite things and showcase some of the amazing music and art you create."[19] Along with the radio premiere, "Dream Dream Dream" was released on music streaming platforms and a visualizer video was released on YouTube.[20]

In mid-2019, Leclercq announced that his live show, dubbed Good Faith Live, would debut at Lollapalooza 2019, along with new music.[21] He stated in an interview that he had been writing the album and creating the Good Faith Live show simultaneously, and he wanted the debut of his new show to have an appropriately sized production.[2][22] It was later revealed his supporting lineup consisted of ford., LP Giobbi, Devault, Ilo Ilo, Giraffage, Flamingosis, and Instupendo.[23]

The show consists of Leclercq performing alone on stage triggering samples, playing keys, drums, and singing, while accompanied by themed visuals loosely inspired by the types used in the Shelter Live Tour.[7] He announced that the first show at Lollapalooza would be followed by shows in London, Amsterdam, and Paris. A longer North American leg began in October 2019 in Vancouver and ended on 14 December in Austin, Texas, a total of 31 shows.[24] This will be followed by an Australian tour as part of FOMO Festival in January 2020.