“À Vélo” by Baicikeul Benoit is the kind of song you need this season. It’s a joyous, raucous love letter to cycling, to happiness, to staying mindful of the environment, and to the climate activism Baicikeul was writing from the lead-up to the Tour de France. It’s a song that injects truth into the catchy riffs it rides and, in doing so, actually rides with a weight lighter than its concerns. “À Vélo” is light on its feet because it’s had its feet stomping on the ground. It’s also a lot of fun.
The single channels its outrage and fury with a righteous bounce, and while it may feel incongruous at first, it works here for how powerfully the lyrical and melodic message counterbalances its subject matter. Baicikeul Benoit, at home in his own company here as a solo act, layers the single with both familial and worldly textures. Ah Moon, a Burmese singer and climate activist, makes an appearance on “À Vélo” and her stories about biking in Burma, and later in life being outpriced on bicycles by scooters, are worlds away from Baicikeul’s cycling-as-protest that comes here from closer to home. Both have used bicycles, he as a response to the glacial momentum of climate change, she out of economic and later political necessity. He might be decrying bureaucracy while she may have been cycling for her life at one point. The confluence of the two and the joy they take in cycling in the song allow their stories to ride side-by-side, buoyed by the absurd happiness of the arrangement.
Baicikeul Benoit is at his best when he’s letting listeners in on the things he cares about. In a way, the more gravity there is in the world, the more levity his music takes on. Be it politics, climate, the technological problems of artificial intelligence, or the white noise of our collective media diet, he doesn’t shy away from the things he cares about. Nor does he take them lightly. He sounds like a man making lemonade with the lemons his way of life handed to him and finding a way to make them dance, then sing it all back in joyous retrospect. “À Vélo” is a jubilant call to arms and a playful mood piece all wrapped in the same bouncy beat. Whether or not it sticks with you long after you leave the dance floor, or that breakfast ride, is a different question altogether.
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