MAIS ON NE PEUT PAS RÊVER TOUT LE TEMPS

¡What a nice album! "Orée" is the beginning and gives a divine spiritual vibe from a common beautiful female scat vocal accompanied by an instrumentation that could easily be part of a Genesis song due to its prolonged up and down chords (especially the drummer reminds me a lot of Phil Collins). At about 3 minutes in, a fretless bass comes in to generate some fun, which at first is more subtle but then its significance in this song gradually becomes apparent. When everything seemed to be over, the guitar comes back to give a new start to this same song, and in these 4 minutes, each instrument has its particular moment to stand out from the others. The harmonies are really beautiful... Perhaps without the wind instruments this song could work mainly as a work of suspense, but the flute gives it that hint of lushness that makes the song so special. The keyboards are as ethereal as the bass, as is typical of French music. At the end, when everything had calmed down and the song had really come to an end, well, no. The guitar creates for the third and last time a new, very brief interlude to close the song with tense arrangements.

"Aquadingen" is wayward. The album continues with a short song driven by a dispassionate riff but giving action and concentration to the other instruments. This reminds me of high-energy symphonic songs like those of Yes and also of many funk albums. I like it mainly because it doesn't follow a specific rule, i.e. each musician seems to do what he or she wants to do. I would bet that the whole song or the vast majority of it is improvised.

I feel something strange is going on with "La Caravane De L'oubli". The fun returns with another guitar riff, but this time fun, and several wind instruments that provide oriental sparkles. The ambience is provided (at least at the beginning) by a keyboard that acts as a minimoog and has a very strange effect. Evidently this song ends any doubts the listener may have about the album and confirms that cultural and ethnic searches have no limits here! The voice of "Le Muezzin Mystérieux", Arabic and modified, is important for the song to make sense... Perhaps if this detail were missing, would become another of many similar songs in the progressive rock world that try to adapt certain traits from all over the place. For me, this song is the least interesting of the 4 songs on the album, but that doesn't mean it's bad. I just wouldn't listen to it many more times because I don't think anything transcendental exists here.

The last song on the album is the homonym one, "Mais On Ne Peut Pas Rever Tout Le Temps", and it starts with a man saying the title, as if introducing it. This was funny to me, I think it's the second time I've heard a studio song being introduced (after "The Return of the Giant Hogweed"). Well, let's get down to business: The energy of the first song returns here, in a sort of second part, with this beautiful female vocal by Lisa Bois and instruments that recreate as much of nature as they can. The purity is contrasted by more aggressive percussion and an electric guitar playing a noisy solo. Halfway through the song, the terrain takes on the colour of classic jazz rock and it all seems to blend into something that sounds like traces of a non-existent Weather Report song. The creativity expands more than anywhere else on the album and the cleverest minutes are created, closing the album by surprisingly exceeding expectations, with each instrument with its own particular riff and someone laughing.

"Mais On Ne Peut Pas Rever Tout Le Temps" is one of the shortest progressive rock albums I've heard, but in Zeuhl and related movements this seems to be normal due to the search for a concrete experience. Passed with flying colours, I think it's one of those albums that the more you listen to, the more you'll like it.