UN PEU DE L'ÂME DES BANDITS

Second and the last Aksak Mabul album is strongly different from their debut. Three years of intensive concerts under RIO flags have gone, and Aksak Maboul is very different band on this release.

Besides of founding duo of Marc Hollander and Vincent Kenis, all the bunch of RIO leading artists participates on the recordings: drummer Chris Cutler and guitarist Fred Frith from Henry Cow, wind player Michel Berckmans from UZ, vocalist Catherine Jauniaux.

If band's debut was beautiful very acoustic, melancholic European urban folk-avant, pleasant and enjoyable, this album from very first minutes opens with dissonances, dark atmospheres and tension. Not even traces of sunny aerial sound of it's predecessor could be found - air is nervous, very noisy, instruments distorted, compositions broken by rhythms and structures. Even more - being in fact quite characteristic RIO album, with strong chamber rock influences and some free jazz moments, every composition of this album is played in different manner.

From free jazz bulky songs to dark chamber rock to street-wise Argentinian tango to excellent Middle Eastern hypnotising tune to almost Iggy Pop-like punk. Such concept makes this album very eclectic, more close to collection of occasional songs, but from the other hand, every composition is very different and listener has no chance to become bored. 23+ minutes long Cinema is a culmination - complex contemporary avant composition ,minimalist by its nature, but with soloing of different instruments one after another over the basic sound.

It's very difficult to compare two this great band's releases: I really love their debut as excellence of European urban folklore-based avant, but this, their second release, has its nerve, its tension and its own world of real RIO against debut's beauty. Recommended as equally good pair for debut.