A discreet but fundamental figure of the French music scene, Gérard Manset, who signs part of his albums with his name alone, embodies a poetic, melodic universe as marginal as it is demanding. Trained at the Paris Arts Déco, he was first destined for a career as a painter, a passion that never left him despite his musical path. The 1980s were marked by travel and adventure, his expeditions across America and Asia recounted in novels and travel notebooks such as Chambre d'Asie, inspiring the more exotic texts and sounds of albums like Royaume de Siam and L'Atelier du crabe.