NI VENT... NI NOUVELLE

Maneige is one of my favorite recent discoveries. They are a fine fusion group from Quebec. Ni Vent...Ni Nouvelle is one of the fortunate Maneige albums to be released on CD. After hearing the brilliant and beautiful Les Porches, which is not available on CD (hopefully not for long), I pounced on this one.

While the compositions are shorter, they maintain the high level of quality from before. The general mood is very light, airy and happy. Occasionally they break from that and get into some pretty heavy jams. In short, we have memorable melodies, a good rhythm section to back those melodies, and some of the best auxiliary percussiom implementation I've ever heard. Maneige are surely among the top groups who use auxiliary percussion. Take a look at all of those instruments! We have timpani, latin timpani, cenceros, Chinese blocks, taboukas, gong, darboukas, wood drum, woodblock, maracas, spoons, Basque drum, chimes, glockenspiel, vibraphone and tubular bells. Each of which is used with precision, making it one of the most interesting, and colorful fusion albums from one of the most interesting and colorful fusion groups.

All in all, Maneige is not a group to miss. Fusion fans especially need to get their hands on at least one of their albums.