TRITON

Potemkine's second album is an odd but enjoyable affair. They had slimmed down to a trio of Charles and Philippe Goubin on guitar and drums plus bassist Dominic Dubuisson, both Goubin brothers doubling on piano and Charles also adding some wordless vocals, and Michel Goubin guetst on keyboards on one track.

The music has something of a Zeuhl feel, but has a lot in common with the Canterbury jazz rock of Hatfield and the North and post- Wyatt Soft Machine as well, although the general ambience is considerably darker than most Canterbury bands. The rhythm section dominates things a lot of the time, with sinuous bass and drums embellished by washes of guitar or piano, although when they take the lead the guitar and keyboards become a lot more prominent. The bass in particular is very well recorded, with a very warm and round tone, and there's some very tasteful interplay with Phlippe Goubin's drumming. The contrasting dynamics work well, but the downside is that the arrangements are a bit sparse, and the piano parts (mostly overdubbed) don't gel all that well with the rhythm section. The best tracks are Loolit II, which is played as a trio with minimal (if any) overdubbing, and Liberserium Urb et Chant de Victor, which features Michel Goubin on keyboards. The CD reissue has 4 additional tracks, 2 from the debut album Foetus and both sides of Potemkine's one and only single. These, especially the 2 pieces from Foetus, have a fuller and more rounded sound and the presence of electric violin recalls Mahavishnu Orchestra.

Triton is a solid piece of left field jazz fusion from the 70s, but nothing to get too excited about. Add an extra half star for the CD reissue with the bonus tracks, but newcomers would be better advised to start with Nicholas II.

The title of this album comes from the musical chord of the same name which in the Middle Ages was considered as the musical work of the Devil. The chord was only reintroduced in Western music at the beginning of the 20th century, in particular by Stravinsky and Bartok. By the way this info was written in the liner notes. There are actually four brothers who have all been involved in this band.Their influences were MAGMA, MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA and WEATHER REPORT among others. There are four bonus tracks two of which were songs from their first studio album called "Foetus" which is great because this has proven to be a difficult album to get a hold of. And the other two songs are the "a" and "b" sides of a single released in 1974.

"Asyle" features jazzy drumming,throbbing bass and slowly picked guitar. A feast of tasty sounds including piano. A change comes in after 2 1/2 minutes as it's not as "busy" now and very jazzy. The last minute and a half is a great sounding passage. "Crepuscula" is darker and quite atmospheric with no real melody. The piano and drums come in and out of the soundscape quickly. The male vocal melodies are faint. The song comes alive 2 minutes in as we get more of a melody but everything is still slowed down. I really like the guitar melody before 4 minutes. "Loolit II" opens with the drums beating steadily as the bass and guitar play. Everything is so precise and intricate. Great interplay as well in this another song that allows the instruments to breathe as they have lots of space. The guitar takes off on a tangent after 3 minutes and the rest follow. The song continues to unfold as earlier themes return.

"Liberserim Urb Et Chant De Viamor" is brighter with more energy but that's not saying a lot in either case. Haha. Female vocal melodies come and go. "Eiram" is the final and longest track on the album. More guitar, piano and vocal melodies until we get some dissonant sounds before 4 minutes. I know they don't list any horns on this album, but what is that after 6 minutes ? Bass, piano and drum leisurely come and go until we get a terrific guitar solo with a nice tone to it. The drums are great as are the vocal melodies that follow.

I thoroughly enjoyed this record and it's a must have for Zeuhl fans out there. These guys opened for MAGMA several times in their careers. Highly recommended.

"Triton" was the second Potemkine release, the one in which the band's ideology found its definitive expression. Despite the diabolic implications of the album's title, the sound and style delivered in it is not diabolical at all: if any, it is creepy and dark in many places, but in a controlled manner, as if putting emphasis on the mystery instead of the sinister. I'm not totally convinced about Potemkine being an essentially zheul act: I perceive them as a jazz-prog band with strong zheul and RIO components, and as such I enjoy and analyze their albums. Anyway, it is clear that the band has paid more attention to the influence from avant-prog so it is very present in much of he writing process and arrangements for the albums' repertoire. At times you can tell hat there's a noticeable family resemblance connecting what Potemkine are up to and what Univers Zero achieved in their debut album that same year. So here we've got an ensemble on top of their game, moving beyond the sonorities of their debut album and offering a greater deal of energy than on heir follow-up and final release "Nicolas II". 'Asyle' kicks off the album with a constrained yet amazing fire, gracefully sustained on the piano colorful washes and the powerful bass interventions (most of the time overshadowing the texturial guitar phrases). The motif shifts that occur from minute 3 onwards generate that sort of tension that the prog connoisseur can easily relate to the Francophone school of camber-rock. The track ends with a reprise of the initial motif. 'Crepuscula' is more deeply solemn, with an overwhelming mystery that emerges from the silent spaces between the piano chords. Once the whole ensemble settles in comes a beautiful Weather Report-inspired motif pertinently closed down by piano dewdrops. Building melancholic mystery in such an effective manner is a Potemkine forte, no doubt about it. 'Loolit II' partially follows this trend, aiming at foggy atmospheres but with a major dose of density and an enhanced avant-garde attitude. There's a particularly excellent moment in which Charles Goubin brings a tortured guitar solo, very Frith-like (such a pity that it is too short.!). For the last 2 ½ minutes things turn out increasingly extroverted until reaching an incendiary climax. 'Liberserim Urb et Chant de Viamor' rounds like a hybrid of "5"-era Soft Machine and eh first Univers Zero: agile and plethoric of bizarre melodic developments, his piece serves as a preserver of the magic portrayed in the previous track. 'Eiram' closes down the original repertoire of "Triton" on an epic tone: its abundantly jazzy colors, half Weatheresque, half Canterburian, are properly wrapped in a chamber-rock guise that allows the band to explore its most adventurous facet without losing an inch of groove. The CD edition includes no less than four bonus tracks. The first two come from the "Foetus" album, plain jazz-rock with extra avant-garde inspired complexity, either on an playful vein ('Loolit') or in a grayish mood ('Zed'). The last two bonuses come from he band's debut recording, a single that showed Potemkine quite close to heir veteran compatriots of Moving Gelatine Plates with ounces of Mahavishnu Orchestra. Potemkine is an excellent item from the glorious age of jazz-prog: those who appreciate their legacy can only have words of praise for his album, which I regard as their master opus.

3.5 stars really!!

Reduced to a trio, Triton is a very different affair, when compared to its predecessor Foetus. First of all the one-time septet that included a prog-best four brothers Goubin (thus beating GG's three Shulman, but not the Jackson 5 in the non-prog category), is now only a trio, with only two brothers Charles & Philippe (both on piano, but guitar and voices for the former and drums and percs for the latter) and bassist Dubuisson on bass. As you can imagine, these personnel cuts have drastically modified the group's sound, as we move away from the Mahavishnu Orchestra sound (and to a lesser extent Weather Report and RTF) of their debut Foetus and advance well into mostly-instrumental Zeuhlian/Canterbury soundscapes (which were already present but much more discreet), somewhere between Hatfield, Univers Zero, Magma and Vortex. Much of the sonic changes are of course due to the absence of Vidal's violin, but the Zeuhl elements in their music on Foetus have slipped from the joyous Zao to the solemn Magma and the depressive UZ on Triton.

Named on the famously "church-forbidden devil-induced chord", it's easy to see why Potemkine sound became all a sudden much more severe and somber (and sober, but that due to the group's trimming to a trio), as they chose to delve into Varese and Bartok, while keeping the jazz influence alive. The opening track Asyle is definitely UZ-inspired (although the Belgians were just releasing their first album the same year, but they'd been around since 73) and Goubin hasn't much that D Denis would lack or envy. The vocals are sufficiently rare, but in the high register. With the ultra-slow and gloomy Crepuscula (this is sounding like the future Shub-Niggurath), then the most distinctive (and fave of mine) and intricate Loolit II, which a rework of the Foetus track of the same name.

After the GG-esque Chant de Viamor opening the flipside, comes the album's highlight, the 13-mins+ Eiram (Marie in reverse) with tons of interesting passages, including some percussion-only, but the gradual crescendo with the pulsating bass around the fifth and seventh minutes is quite impressive. The second part of the track is much more on Magma's Milky Way, but can remind me of early Eskaton as well.

The first two bonus tracks are taken from the first album Foetus and can be useful to point out the progress between the two works, but most of you will be on the look out for that first (and a bit elusive) album. You'll plainly see/hear the Stravinsky-laden jazz-rock of Mahavishnu Orchestra being one of their huge influences on their debut album. The next two tracks are of even much greater interest, since they're from their debut single recorded three years prior to this album and already hinting at the general Zeuhl/Canterburian musical direction.

Hard to say which of the three Potemkine is the best as they've all got their pros and cons, but in face of the difficulty of finding the debut Foetus (it's always nice to discover a band's oeuvre chronologically), Triton will be also a more likely good start as it features part of that debut album and the very first recordings of the group which much more accessible. Some would also pretend that Potemkine's third album is the better intro, because of the stronger rhythms and more conventional chord structures.

POTEMKINE formed all the way back in 1971 in Toulouse, France and started off as a cover band of classic rock like the Rolling Stones and Deep Purple but turned to the world of jazz fusion once the founder and brother Charles and Gilles Goubin discovered the wild worlds of the Weather Report and Mahavishnu Orchestra. Somewhere before the band's debut "Foetus" the world of zeuhl began creeping into the band's sound after attending Magma concerts. The debut "Foetus" was an interesting take on the potentials of mixing jazz rock with the idiosyncratic characteristics of zeuhl but lacked any real cohesion and sorely lacked any bite.

The band followed up with its sophomore release TRITON which came out in 1977 and offered a much more accomplished roster of five tracks that added up to just over 37 minutes of playing time. TRITON found POTEMKINE taking its jazz rock and zeuhl fusion to the world of 20th century classical complexity with composers such as Edgar Varese, Erik Satie and Claude DeBussy serving as the primary inspirational figures. The title of the album refers to the tritone which was considered the work of the devil by the Spanish Inquisition and only reintroduced to Western Music by composers such as Stravinsky and Bartok.

The lineup expanded as well which included the three Goubin brothers: Charles (guitar) Michael (keyboards), Phillipe (drums) and Dominque Dubuisson back on bass as well as Xavier Vidal returning on violins. However yet another Goubin, this time bassist Gilles joined the team as well as an extra drummer Maurice Bataille on a couple of tracks. At this same time POTEMKINE also started to dabble in the world of avant-prog with a more abstract sound courtesy of exposure to bands like Art Zoyd and Etron Fou Leloublan. The results of all this newfound inspiration made TRITON a much more interesting album than the band's debut "Foetus." Likewise the zeuhl rhythms and influences are much more apparent on TRITON which created a very original sound that set the band easily apart from the competition.

The album is primarily an instrumental fusion of the avant-prog delivered by the Rock In Opposition bands that were popping up around Belgium and France in the late 1970s along with the Magma and already established jazz fusion tendencies although still no woodwinds or jazzy horn sections in the mix. The album also offers a few wordless vocals that serve as an extra instrument mostly in the form of haunting backdrops to creepy avant-garde musical processions. The music is much more diverse on TRITON with the tracks offering a wide range of musical exploration and chock full of various time signature workouts that offer a huge sonic expansion of timbres, dynamics and complexity of the compositions. The distinct use of guitar work also was unique for any major zeuhl works of the 1970s.

This album really features a nice mix of things: various percussive instruments, a unique bouncy bass presence and a quirky way of delivering the guitar parts. Lots of virtuoso piano runs and best of all the compositions are ridiculously complex with difficult to follow yet logically cohesive processions through various motifs and disparate cadences. An uncredited female vocalist sort of drops in and out unexpectedly offering a spectral haunting effect with wordless vocals. The album is extremely engaging and infinitely more dynamic than the rather sleepy indeterminate debut. The jazzy interludes are delivered by the combo effect of the percussion and piano rolls at key moments which keeps this album juggling the worlds of jazz, classical, zeuhl and avant-prog quite nicely.

The album closes with the lengthiest track "Eiram" which at 13 1/2 minutes really takes the band into its full potential and offers a wild ride through the world of wild unhinged prog that had been established on the previous tracks. A huge step up for POTEMKINE and one of those crazy complex prog albums for those who like it knotty and angular as it can possibly get. The reissues offer a whopping four bonus tracks which are equally as captivating especially the feisty "Rictus" which is more energetic than anything on TRITON's original track listing as the album itself simmers on mid-tempo for the majority of its run. Great album and the only one of POTEMKINE's three album run to really implement zeuhl bass grooves in full force.