La Buissonne

Courtois/Erdmann/Fincker: Bandes originales (RJAL 397030)

| Tyran Grillo

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Bandes originales

Vincent Courtois cello
Robin Fincker tenor saxophone, clarinet
Daniel Erdmann tenor saxophone
Recorded live on October 17/18, 2016 at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-fontaines and mixed on November 21/22 by Gérard de Haro, assisted by Anaëlle Marsollier
Mastered by Nicolas Baillard at La Buissonne Mastering Studio
Produced by Gérard de Haro & RJAL for La Buissonne and 22D Music
Release date: October 6, 2017

On Bandes originales, cellist Vincent Courtois, in his imaginative band with reedmen Robin Fincker and Daniel Erdmann, reimagines cinema as a purely sonic art form, wherein characters are instruments and their scripts are woven from notes in real time. The trio’s selections span a range of eras, genres, and geographical locations. Setting the stage is a selection from one of my favorites (and the very first subtitled film I ever saw), Tous Les Matins Du Monde. Director Alain Corneau’s 1991 biopic of Marin Marais comes alive in the composer and viola da gamba virtuoso’s “Le Badinage.” Courtois threads the needle of this forlorn tale, almost unrecognizable as tenor saxophone and clarinet extend it far beyond the time of its construction. This is the beauty and joy of the album at hand: an ability to treat each story, whether based on fact or fiction, as the seed for a hedge that continues to be tended in the present. Most of the allusions that follow reference other pillars of French cinema, including Giovanni Fusco’s theme to Hiroshima Mon Amour (1959, dir. Alain Resnais) and Maurice Leroux’s to Le Ballon Rouge (1956, Albert Lamorisse). These two pair particularly well, as the latter’s reversion to childhood eases the traumas described in the former’s intermingling of love and darkest inhumanity. Nino Rota’s soundtrack to Plein Soleil (1960, dir. René Clément) gets two nods, including the unchained “Tarentelle Meurtrière,” as does Courtois’s own retroactive scoring of the 1924 silent film Paris Qui Dort, directed by René Clair. The twisted retrograde of Eric Rohmer’s 1986 touch-and-go love story, Le Rayon Vert, adds further insight via Jean-Louis Valero’s sunlit melody.

Marvin Hamlisch’s motif for Take The Money And Run (1969, dir. Woody Allen) takes the album’s most surreal (if understated) turns, while Michel Legrand’s The Thomas Crown Affair (from the 1968 Norman Jewison original) ripples lyrically through the trio. The program closes with the nostalgia of John Williams’s timeless E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial (1982, dir. Steven Spielberg). From unassuming beginnings, it pulls a veritable bouquet of multitracked cellos for a lush and dramatic denouement—a reminder that even when film reels stop, the images continue to animate themselves on the projection screens of our minds, as immortal as they are lodged in history.

Trio Zéphyr: Travelling (RJAL 397029)

| Tyran Grillo

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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.

Andy Emler: Running backwards (RJAL 397028)

| Tyran Grillo

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Andy Emler
Running backwards

Andy Emler piano
Marc Ducret electric guitar
Claude Tchamitchian double bass
Eric Echampard drums
Recorded live at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines, on November 17/18, 2016 by Gérard de Haro, assisted by Anaëlle Marsollier
Mixed at Studios La Buissonne by Gérard de Haro and Andy Emler
Mastered by Nicolas Baillard at Studios La Buissonne
Produced by Gérard de Haro & RJAL for La Buissonne and la Compagnie aime l’air
Release date: May 19, 2017

After two magnificent albums with his powerhouse MegaOctet, pianist-composer Andy Emler strips his adaptive profile down to its essentials alongside guitarist Marc Ducret, bassist Claude Tchamitchian, and drummer Eric Echampard. What he loses in numbers he makes up for in variety, spanning the gamut from ambient to postmodern funk at the flick of a switch.

Ducret is a detail-oriented guitarist whose microscopically attuned improvisations somewhat recall those of Derek Bailey. His, however, are possessed of a uniquely lyrical quality that marks the surfaces of everything they touch with honest fingerprints. His “Sphinx 2” opens the record unaccompanied before the quartet jumps into fine form on the title track. In unison with Emler’s right hand, he exudes quantum energy. Tchamitchian flexes and breathes at the center of it all, while Echampard pulls out all the stops to let every cylinder breathe with combustion. Soloing across the board is confident yet leaves plenty of room for the listener to unplug and unwind. And speaking of unplugging, Ducret himself goes acoustic in “Sad and beautiful” (also the title of Emler’s previous trio outing for La Buissonne) for a delicate yet emotionally direct sound. Here, as in “Marche dans l’autre sens,” guitar and piano banter like siblings, while “Lève toi et… Marc” finds them molding each other into a dynamic rollercoaster—out of water into flame and back again.

As one often finds in Emler’s oeuvre, quiet seeds yield phenomenal trees and vice versa. The hushed cymbals of “Turn around and don’t look back,” for one, predict an interlocking storm. The bass intro of “Watch your back, Darwin… I mean,” for another, tips the band’s finest synergy into a lyrical twist, laying its head in anticipation of sweet rest.

Caravaggio: Turn up (RJAL 397027)

| Tyran Grillo

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Caravaggio
Turn up

Bruno Chevillon electric bass, double bass, electronic effects, tambourine, voice
Eric Echampard Tama Starclassic drums, Paiste traditional cymbals, voice
Benjamin de la Fuente violin, tenor guitar, electronic effects, acoustic slide guitar, voice
Samuel Sighicelli Hammond organ, sampler, analog synthesizers (Korg, Dave Smith, Moog), Fender Rhodes, piano, voice
Recorded at Studios La Buissonne in July and November 2015 by Gérard de Haro and Nicolas Baillard
ENCERcléS recorded by Jean-Baptiste Deucher (Studio Acousti, Paris)
Edited by Benjamin de la Fuente and Samuel Sighicelli
Mixed in May 2016 by Gérard de Haro, Nicolas Baillard, Benjamin de la Fuente and Samuel Sighicelli
Mastered at Galaxy by Marwan Danoun
Produced by Gérard de Haro and RJAL for La Buissonne and Sphota
Release date: February 24, 2017

Following their extraordinary La Buissonne label debut, the quartet known as Caravaggio returns with all new music, collectively produced, mostly in the moment. The result is more than, as the press release would have it, an art rock album in the idiom of contemporary experimental music. It’s a giant leap forward in the band’s evolution. After slipping into the electronic bass line of “Tanker Fever”  (courtesy of Bruno Chevillon), it’s difficult to avoid getting swept away by its digital current. Plucked from the DJ rack of some parallel otherworld, it treats hooks, structure, and repetition as journeys rather than destinations, and the groove they imply as the soundtrack for our itineracy. Guitar and drums are the spine and nerve impulses, respectively, but constantly switch places, just as prone to hanging from the unswaying branches of quietude. Other dives into the dark end include “I Wonder (Your Heart is Not in This),” in which sound bites of cinematic terror and despair encircle us, and the quiet dance of signs and cymbals that is “ENCERcléS.”

Much of the album, however, lives in brightly lit climates. Where the percussion-heavy mashup of “Street Art” feels like a video game in fast-forward that ends in a drunken crawl, “1064°C” is a solar flare powerful enough to upset the magnetic field of everything we heard until this point. The most fascinating associations come together in “Blue Crystal.” Its vocal samples and flashes of inner lives stretch far and wide. And if its topography is oceanic, then “Land Art” is the meteorite splashing into its currents, leaving a hush of activity in its wake, sustained for all time yet cut short by the present.

Gilles Coronado: au pire, un bien (RJAL 397026)

| Tyran Grillo

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Gilles Coronado
au pire, un bien

Gilles Coronado guitar
Matthieu Metzger alto saxophone, electronics
Antonin Rayon Hammond B3, Clavinet, bass keyboard
Frank Vaillant drums, electronic percussion
Philippe Katerine vocals
Recorded on March 9-11, 2015 at Studios La Buissonne by Nicolas Baillard, assisted by Gérard de Haro.
Philippe Katerine’s voice recorded on March 19, 2015 at Ohm Sweet Ohm by Julien Reyboz
Mixed on April 1-3 by Nicolas Baillard and Gilles Coronado at Studios La Buissonne
Mastered by Nicolas Baillard at Studios La Buissonne
Produced by Gérard de Haro/RJAL and Shreds for La Buissonne
Release date: March 18, 2016

This first nominal leader date of Gilles Coronado places the guitarist in a new outfit among saxophonist Matthieu Metzger, keyboardist Antonin Rayon, and drummer Frank Vaillant. Across a set of seven originals, he navigates an airtight vessel of which every rivet is accounted for. The band’s ability to render atmospheres at once dramatic and proximate is a pleasure to behold, especially in the embrace of headphones.

The steadily mounting trajectory of “La traque” foreshadows the patience of everything that follows. Coronado’s guitar is a mellifluous creature, here and throughout, while Rayon’s organ rolls out an underlying carpet from the depths of the subconscious. Metzger breaks like sun through clouds, yet just as resolutely quiets to a whisper before jumping into a groovier deep end. Metzger indeed strikes the brightest match across this meticulously organized pile of firewood. Between his hard-won cry in the trapezoidal framework of “Des bas debits des eaux” and his skronk-worthy interplay with Coronado in “Wasted & Whirling,” he elicits lights and shadows in equal measure. Rayon’s keyboards are another defining presence, providing bass lines in the space funk of “La fin justifie le début” and choice ambience to the cathartic patterning of “Presque Joyeuse.” Guest vocalist Philippe Katerine joins for the title track, providing an enjoyable departure via an indie pop-ish and semi-satirical tone. Like the album as a whole, it teeters between the introspective and the wild. Slightly off center but never veering off the road, it keeps us in its rearview at all times.

Cholet/Michel/Ithursarry/Lopez: Whispers (RJAL 397025)

| Tyran Grillo

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Whispers

Jean-Christophe Cholet piano
Matthieu Michel flugelhorn
Didier Ithursarry accordion
Ramon Lopez drums
Recorded at Studios La Buissonne, December 11/12, 2014 and mixed February 12/13, 2015 by Gérard de Haro
Mastered at Studios La Buissonne by Nicolas Baillard
Preparation and piano tuning by Alain Massonneau
Artistic direction by Gérard de Haro
Produced by Gérard de Haro and RJAL for La Buissonne & Infingo
Release date: April 29, 2016

Jean-Christophe Cholet (piano) and Matthew Michel (flugelhorn) leverage two decades of collaboration and friendship in this recording. Joining them on occasion are Didier Ithursarry (accordion) and Ramon Lopez (drums) for a set of mostly in-group tunes. Exceptions to that rule include “He’s gone.” Written by Charlie Mariano, it first appeared on The Door Is Open, an album by Jasper Van’t Hof’s Pork Pie, released in 1976 on MPS. Though dour in nature, it develops here with a mounting brightness. Another is “Zemer,” a modal piece of drama by Israeli composer Marc Lavry, elsewhere recorded by Daniel Zamir and Satlah on Children of Israel (released in 2002 on John Zorn’s Tzadik label).

Such balancing acts between internal and external forces are best performed by the core duo in “Fair,” through which they crochet an evenly distributed band of colors, Michel adding a tasteful choir of horns toward the end. The quartet weaves its own fantasies, making first appearance in “Rêve.” Its flowing colors can be found dyeing such cloths as “Diss” and “Le tour de Marius,” the latter a bluesy send-off into a hopeful future. The set is rounded out by a solo piano interlude (“Noctambule”) and the lovely duets of “The Fairground” (piano and drums) and “Onnance” (accordion and flugelhorn). Both wrap their fingers around memories threatening to fade while keeping one foot in and out of time, leaving us to tell the story of their passing.

Andy Emler MegaOctet: Obsession 3 (RJAL 397024)

| Tyran Grillo

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Andy Emler MegaOctet
Obsession 3

Andy Emler piano
Claude Tchamitchian double bass
Eric Echampard drums
Laurent Blondiau trumpet
Guillaume Orti alto saxophone
Philippe Sellam alto saxophone
Laurent Dehors tenor saxophone
François Thuillier tuba
François Verly percussion
Recorded live at Studios La Buissonne on December 16/17, 2014 by Gérard de Haro and Nicolas Baillard
Mixing by Gérard de Haro and Andy Emler at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines
Mastered by Nicolas Baillard
Release date: October 16, 2015

Andy Emler and his MegaOctet return to La Buissonne for Round 2. Despite being the ensemble’s seventh album overall, it feels as fresh as a debut. After the wonders of E total, one can both rightly expect and be surprised by what takes place here. That same feeling of world building is present, but with an even stronger fortification of purpose, of which the tone is dutifully set in “Tribalurban 1.” Emler’s ability to mesh stark dynamic contrasts—from whispers to shouts—has never sounded so organic, and elicits an interlocking of horns and piano that ends with laughter from the band: a brief insight into an underlying camaraderie.

Though recorded in-studio, the album comes across as a live gig—an impression fully implied by announcement of the musicians one by one in the concluding “Die coda.” Before arriving at that whimsical conclusion, we’re introduced to an anatomy of melodically well-toned muscles. The campiness of “Doctor solo” (grounded in the playfulness of my favorite musician in the bunch, tuba master François Thuillier) is echoed in such exciting highlights as “Balallade 2,” in which trumpeter Laurent Blondiau soars high above a vast continent of ideas. Blondiau further delights in “Trois total,” the big band-leaning sound of which gives the listener a bear hug.

The opening splash of “La Megaruse” sets up a fleet-footed run across water by François Verly on marimba. Drummer Eric Echampard and bassist Claude Tchamitchian keep step along the shore, sustaining the same level of uplift from dawn to dusk. This and the 16.5-minute “Tribalurban 2” are phenomenal showcases for the reedmen as well, each lighting a match in that warm kindling only the 70s could have inspired.

If Obsession 3 were a dealer’s table, then I guarantee you wouldn’t find a single poker face among Emler and his committed associates. Instead, they show their smiles and willingly forfeit their advantage, laying down their hands with glee, happier to have played together than won.

Jeremy Lirola: Uptown Desire (RJAL 397023)

| Tyran Grillo

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Jeremy Lirola
Uptown Desire

Jeremy Lirola double bass
Jozef Dumoulin piano, Fender Rhodes, electronics
Denis Guivarc’h alto saxophone
Nicolas Larmignat drums
Recording, mixing and mastering at Studios La Buissonne, Pernes-les-Fontaines, France
Recorded and mixed by Gérard de Haro and Nicolas Baillard on July 7-9, 2014
Mastered by Nicolas Baillard
Produced by Gérard de Haro & RJAL for La Buissonne, and Jeremy Lirola
Release date: February 5, 2016

Uptown Desire is bassist Jeremy Lirola’s portrait of his time growing up in New York City and the many performances and influences he encountered there. An unusual blend with Jozef Dumoulin (piano, Fender Rhodes, electronics), Denis Guivarc’h (alto saxophone), and Nicolas Larmignat (drums), it develops in real time—i.e., without ever trying to fast-forward or rewind—as if following every second to the letter. “Insufficient words” is therefore more than just the title of its opening track; it’s also the quartet’s modus operandi. Traction is consequently hard to come by. The teetering dialogue between piano and bass that begins “Moutal” is indicative in this regard, leaving drums to formulate their own interpretations between the two voices, an amalgamation of signs that plucks the foreground like a fruit from its tree. The saxophone comes in almost too late, as if only now awakening to a groundswell on the horizon. Such tensions between paths parallel and askew cross territories relatively unified (“Après quelque part”) and incohesive (“Cette belle chose sans nom”) alike. It’s as if the temptation of a head-nod might be too much of a given, and so the piano refuses to take the aesthetic bait.

Having said that, there are some more successful coalitions herein. “Art the last belief” piques interest in Dumoulin’s Fender Rhodes, meshing well with the late-night vibe of Guivarc’h’s altoism. “Mektoub” is another charmer, where the subtlety of every player interacts at a subcutaneous level. “Au pays des mutants,” though off-kilter, is also groovy in its own way, jumping into the fray with some forthright reed work and fragmentary pianism, bowing out for an engaging bass monologue into the finish.

After so much inconsistency, it’s refreshing to close with “Bello by bus.” Its driving beat, lyrical bassing, and measured melody make me wish it was the rule, not the exception. For while the album is filled with great ideas and instincts, the results are largely meandering and underwhelming. There really isn’t a sense of conversation here but of a band that, despite sharing a room, is speaking in cardinal directions.

Bruno Angelini: Instant Sharings (RJAL 397022)

| Tyran Grillo

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Bruno Angelini
Instant Sharings

Bruno Angelini piano
Régis Huby violin, tenor violin, electronics
Claude Tchamitchian double bass
Edward Perraud drums, percussion
Recorded June 16-18, 2014 and mixed November 10/11, 2014 at Studios La Buissonne by Gérard de Haro
Mastered by Nicolas Baillard at Studios La Buissonne
Release date: June 2, 2015

Pianist Bruno Angelini convenes his quartet with violinist Régis Huby, bassist Claude Tchamitchian, and drummer-percussionist Edward Perraud in this album of odes to what came before and songs for what has yet to be. Though the set list is largely made up of originals, it’s bookended by two versions of Paul Motian’s “Folk song for Rosie.” Each is a sun-kissed drizzle of cymbals in keeping with the composer’s preference for fluid color over solid form, and holds the other tunes in a loving embrace.

Wayne Shorter’s “Meridianne – A Wood Sylph” is another percussive wonder, giving away its secrets as if in slow motion and with an understated approach to beauty. The last outlier comes clothed in the melody of Steve Swallow’s “Some Echoes.” Its bowed strings align over pianistic arpeggios and other connective tissue: a musical illustration of synapses in a giant brain. It’s also a highlight for its melodic strength, robust yet airy arrangement, and harmonic finish.

As for Angelini’s tunes, they vitally hold their own against these cousins of creative spirit. Evocative not only for their cosmic scale, as in the quantum mechanics of “Solange” or the onomatopoetic “Be Vigilant” (the latter a stunner for its churning ocean of piano, drums, and echoing strings), but also for their titles (“Home by another way” and “Open land” personal favorites among them), these dreams within dreams pulls threads of cognizance from one subconscious beacon to another. “Romy” plucks said thread like a giant instrument, unleashing a theme song for the soul, before landing smoothly in the groove of “Immersion.” Walking a thin line between sleeping and waking, only to find that neither applies, it sheds its allegiances to chronology in favor of a more eternal language.

A standout in the La Buissonne catalog.