Benoît Pioulard

Thomas Meluch (born August 4, 1984) is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, writer, and photographer, best known by his pseudonym Benoît Pioulard. Meluch began documenting field recordings and his own lo-fi compositions on dictaphones, discarded stereos and four-track machines in the mid 1990s, later focusing on highly limited CD-R and cassette releases of his experimental, folk-influenced songs for friends and family. His first recordings as Benoît Pioulard appeared on the Random Number...Colors Start compilation released by the Ann Arbor-based Moodgadget label in 2004. After 2005's Enge EP Meluch was signed to Chicago's Kranky imprint, for whom he recorded the albums Précis (2006),Temper (2008), Lasted (2010), and Hymnal (2013). In 2010, Meluch formed Orcas with minimalist composer Rafael Anton Irisarri. The duo's self-titled debut was released in April 2012 on Germany's Morr Music imprint. Meluch lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife, an antiquarian horologist.