Macadam
L'empreinte Inversee
A lost French noir soundtrack, brought back to life. An abandoned film, a forgotten director, a score hidden away for decades. L'Empreinte Inversée is the rediscovered soundtrack to a lost cinematic project by Jean-Claude Dumont, a mysterious, ill-fated figure of the French nouvelle vague whose work blurred the boundaries between crime, obsession and psychological suspense. Set in the windswept landscapes of the Camargue, the film follows Antoine Soulier, a retired Parisian crime commissioner drawn into a baffling murder investigation after an inverted footprint is discovered on a beach. As the clues lead him into a shadowy world of dubious informants, travelling circuses and enigmatic figures, the case begins to unravel not only the facts, but also the detective's own sense of reality. Commissioned by Dumont for his ambitious noir thriller, the original score was sealed away alongside fragments of the film after the director abandoned the project. Rediscovered decades later, the music has now been brought to life for the first time by Leipzig-based project Macadam, who meticulously decoded the composer's original score and recorded it using vintage instruments, respecting the original intentions while bringing their own interpretative sensibility to the music. Moving between hypnotic grooves, shadowy atmospheres, melancholic themes and a recurring funk motif, L'Empreinte Inversée unfolds like a film in sound. Its shifting moods trace Antoine's descent into obsession, weaving together the dusty solitude of the Camargue, the uneasy allure of the circus and the haunting presence of Marianne, the woman whose identity becomes increasingly difficult to grasp. L'Empreinte Inversée is a glimpse into an alternate cinematic history: a lost piece of French noir, recovered from oblivion and finally given a voice. SOUNDTRACK | POLAR | PSYCH-FUNK