À L'AFFÛT D'UN COMPLOT

While this debut album was released on Le Tamanoir label, it received two CD release both with the original stupendous debut album, but also the much weirder live show they held on April 17, 1977. For this album, Conventum presented themselves as a sextet, but were often enhanced by many more - including Kaczinsky, Forestier and Leger (Orchestre Sympathique). Their mostly acoustic sound is very impressive, highly cultivated (very inclined on semi-medieval and old folk music), half of it instrumental, and is best described as avant-folk-prog.

So this release could be presented as two different albums and actually are quite different. As much as the original album is superb, full of delicate ambiances and delightful folk and classic fusion and can be used by any proghead to clear his mind of his problem and escape into a wild world of beauty, as much as the live album is demented, demonic, weird, lurking, somber , macabre (at times), demented and frightful, but very impressive and theatrical.

After a short intro, where Coventum ask you if you are comfortable (you are in for one hell of a ride), a flood of guitar arpeggios is overwhelming you as the small piccolo flute and alto sax are accompanying the superb vocal duet (Les Criticotteuses is a superb play on words combining criticizing and knitting) when two violins are underlining this bed of desire: spine-chilling, yet, no-one will resist it. The following title track is much in the same vein, but become slightly more urgent and inquietant, but the lyrics are about as grandiose as Gabriel or Hammill could ever get, and the guitars oscillate between Anthony Phillips and Fripp's The Crafty League Of Guitarist. La Bataille (the battle), the next track is also the poignant theme track from a movie from a member of Le Conventum artistic circle. The mood is dark, grave and beautiful, with the strings setting such a splendid bed of dreams for the guitars to lay it on thick the drama. Le Piège (the trap) is also from the same movie, but is rather quieter but still quite impressive although, it is quite schizophrenic too, with its wild choirs appearing from nowhere, blowing up a storm and disappearing as quick as they came. The next three tracks are instrumental and still in the line of the album reaching from chamber music to slightly modified jigs. Last track was also a theme for yet another colleague's film and it is yet another flamboyant success around a very modified jig>> absolutely masterful.

The second part of the record is a live concert and presents a very different facet of Conventum, much more tense, nervous, slightly more aggressive, very theatrical, but also just as dramatic (if not more) than the studio album. Although still excellent, (but maybe less immediate without the accompanying images), these tracks suffer from the proximity and superb beauty of the studio album tracks. Here the mood is more to a nervous Stravinsky or psychedelic Prokofiev (Peter And The Wolf). Very impressive, but for this party, French language becomes almost mandatory, but their prose is impressively poetic. Clearly Conventum was a forerunner of sorts for future Quebecois groups such as Miriodor and Interference Sardines. Their capacity at making this acoustic chamber music but rendering incredibly rock with just a few ingredients is immense and Conventum deserves to be re-discovered to its true value.

This is a review of the CD which also includes the live album.

This Canadian band released three albums in the 1970s or there about. Their music is by no means normal folk rock. This is chamber rock. Their music can be compared to Flairck a lot and also to Aranis. This is folk rock bordering to RIO at times. The instruments are the chamber orchestra instruments ones + acoustic guitars. There is also some added choirs which adds a lot of good spice to the music. The music is very good on this half of the CD.

The final part of the CD, the live part on the other hand........ The less the said, the better. It feels like a different band and a different galaxy. It is a bizzarre shouting match between the vocals and the instruments. Unfortunate; the vocals win. Just play the studio album and regard the live album as the unwanted cousin.

My overall impression is good though and fans of Aranis and Flairck should really pick this one up.

3 stars

Early this summer I spent time with a couple of Quebecois artists named Frank Dervieux and Jacques Blais. Both had CONTRACTION as their backing band and both albums were fabulous. So much so that I did some research to see if I was missing any other bands from that fertile seventies Quebec scene. CONVENTUM was really the only significant band that kept coming up, but I had already taken a pass on them because Folk and Chamber Music just aren't exactly in my wheelhouse as far as sub genres go. I'm so glad I took a chance on this band as I bought both CONVENTUM studio cds this past July.

Both are on ProgQuebec and feature some important info on their history in both french and english. Lots of great pictures as well of this band. It seems like there are so many people in this band as many of these photos have a dozen or so individuals looking back at me. They really were a collective and if you were a guest you were just treated as a member of the CONVENTUM family. This attitude really springs from that institution in Montreal called CEC(short form) where writers, sculpters, painters, filmakers and musicians met and did workshops etc.

There were two incarnations of this band and both disbanded, but when poet Alain-Arthur Painchaud met with three former members in August of 1976 it was agreed that they needed to reform again, for the third time. This lineup would produce the album I'm reviewing today. Basically a six piece including Alain-Arthur's spoken words and vocals. An unusual lineup of three acoustic guitar players, violin and bass. One of the guitarists adds electric guitar and mandolin. Guests include another violinist and a sax man besides five vocalists who are all on the same three tracks.

And one of those singers is Christiane Robichaud from CONTRACTION! It comes full circle doesn't it? This was meant to be. And three of the guests are from that killer band ORCHESTRE SYMPATHIQUE. My first listen was a wonderful experience. I had little in the way of expectations and was promptly blown away by the gorgeous strings and guitars. Very acoustic yet powerful. No drums either, or keyboards! To quote the liner notes "The music became this mixture of folklore, progressive rock and contemporary music. They now had a unique orchestral sound that was dense, elaborate, acoustic chamber music."

The album cover has long intrigued me. It looks like a rich kid from way back, listening to music with the latest technology. Turns out that this is an actual photo of Charles-Eugene Tremblay listening to music on the custom radio his uncle built piece by piece. In 1928! There is a story to this, as Charles-Eugene would one evening hear an SOS coming through that radio and he acted upon this of course. Love the picture on the back cover of about 14 musicians all wearing the same headphones as Charles-Eugene. Also the ProgQuebec label's official symbol is of these headphones with the antennas.

I've gone on far too long, but this record is very uniform sounding and very consistent. The one track that does stand out for me is "La Premiere Piece(21 Juillet)" at 6 1/2 minutes. It's just darker and there's some suspense. The bass stands out and it builds and includes some avant leanings. Angular sounds. Beautiful strings. A solid 4 star record and for sure up for consideration when I do my best of Folk list. Great album!