Trio Zéphyr
Travelling

Delphine Chomel violin, vocals
Marion Diaques viola, vocals
Claire Menguy cello, vocals
Piers Faccini lyrics and voice on “I Saw the Time”
Recorded between Spring 2016 and Spring 2017 at Studios La Buissonne by Gérard de Haro, assisted by Anaëlle Marsollier
Mixed April 10-12, 2017 at Studios La Buissonne by Gérard de Haro
Mastered by Nicolas Baillard at La Buissonne Mastering Studios
Produced by Gérard de Haro & RJAL for La Buissonne
Release date: November 3, 2017

After what I felt was a tragic misstep in their La Buissonne debut, followed by the triumph of its follow-up, Trio Zéphyr returns with a travel diary in both the physical and metaphysical sense. “Eleï” takes immediate control of this precious journey, as if you have been dreaming for a long time, only to awake and find yourself in a train car headed to an unknown destination. This combination of mystery and anxiety feeds your memories of a life that may or may not have been yours. Melodic and textural details assure you, however, that hope will be waiting on the next platform. In light of this development, “Colline” feels like a photograph kept in your shirt pocket: a portrait of someone familiar yet whose name has left a rectangular blank in the photo album of your mind. Does it belong to your childhood or to that of another? Is it your mother or someone without one?

The lyrics of “I saw the time,” as sung by Piers Faccini, remind you of when watches used to mark more than the passing of hours and days. By their gentle force of suggestion you feel the blood of this music flowing through your veins. Backed by the trio’s own voices, its songcraft turns still images into moving ones, as if unpausing a family movie. Those voices continue in “Kourgane,” plowing through snow and debris, while “Soleil disparu” extends that feeling at a more harmonic level, turning outer movement into inner. Even when taking “Refuge,” you find your soul aching with the need for a shoulder to cry on. Once purged of your grief (for whom you do not know), you bid farewell in “Oumano,” the singing of which writes on the fogged window a letter you read over and over until the temperatures on both sides of the glass equalize. Like the tender interludes that wave at you along the way, it speaks of times past to inspire faith in the future.