CE TRÈS CHER SERGE - SPÉCIAL ORIGINES

Aquaserge rocks hard but know how to clean up very well.

This group from France has managed to stay somewhat under the radar, which is surprising considering their ample talent and ability to churn out fantastic art/jazz/space rock, seemingly at the push of a button. This is the kind of album that I think fans of Frank Zappa and Soft Machine would enjoy immensely, myself being one of them.

Ce très cher Serge gives the listener equal doses loud freak-out psychedelic rock, and chilled out grooves under harmonious atonal chanting (in their native tongue, so the lyrics go completely unknown to someone who knows not but two words of French, such as myself). This is an album for headphones! The sound quality is great and there is real attention to detail here. There even seems to be some distant harkening back to some of Brian Wilson's vocal arrangements with the Beach Boys! For this band to exist in this day in age is beyond me. They would have been right at home in the jazz-rock, avant, and Canterbury scenes of the 70s, but don't let their naturally vintage sound fool you. Make no mistake, there is something about this band that is entirely "NOW", highly original, and sometimes seemingly from the future. Drum and bass grooves are a cornerstone for these guys, and they have the odd groovy time signatures down to a T. I would even suggest this album for an open-minded math rock fan given the frenetic, yet precise playing on songs such as "Un Soir De Tempête", "Un Monde Englouti", and "Tombé Dans La Selve". It's hard to pick particularly noteworthy tracks from this album (seeing as how I love the entire thing!), but specific songs that jump out at me are:

2. "Un Soir De Tempête" 3. "Errance" 5. "Un Monde Englouti" 6. "Tombé Dans La Selve" 9. "Visions"

Do yourself a favor and pick up this album now. It is a thing of beauty. These guys are hands down, one of the few exciting bands in existence right now (IMO of course), and you'd be hard-pressed to find another band that sounds like Aquaserge. I'd give this album 4.5 stars if I could.

Second or third album (this is confusing) from this quartet that exploit the submarine vessel like the group Nemo or Nautilus would, but this time in a very Bande Dessinée (comics) manner, with these impressive underwater life dangers on both the front and back cover of the digipak (apparently also pressed on vinyl). The group is now a quartet, but there is a flurry of guest musicians that appear here and there throughout the progress of the album. CTCS is a very different beast than their previous works, and not just in terms of sonics, but in the presentation as well. Indeed, gone are the Canterburyan soundscape and the Zeuhl intonations, but it doesn't mean that their music is that much more accessible or even less insane.

Opening on an, a capella Genèse, the album is not off to a good start, because the following Soir De Tempête is a bit of an obtuse hard-fusion piece with weird mixing choices (IMHO), directly leading (we're in the middle of 6-part mini-suite) into the minimalist Errance and the vocal-dominated interesting Serge Est Perdu, then a very punky Gong-ian Selve and the psychy searing feedback-filled guitars of Algues piece. Only the lengthy Visions piece does bring you back to Aquaserge's previous works on the present album, because we hear some Wyatt-like soundscapes, but unfortunately the finale is a silly vocal-dominated piece that might just seem built to be a sing-along in concert.

As I said above, CTCS is quite different than the U&D release, to the point that it's not that easy to tell if it's the same band at first glace/listen. Repeated listens will soften this remark, because there are less obvious hints that make the link. Personally I prefer the U&D release by a certain margin, but finding it might just be a bit difficult.

While I don't think that this album matches the magic of their most recent release "A L'Amitie", it still casts a spell over this fan. This French trio are helped out by nine guests adding vocals, viola, violin, trumpet, flute, clarinet, organ and guitar. The latter by the way from Makoto Kawabata from ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE. Man this one grew on me a lot as it took a while for it to unfold it's mysteries. Once again we get plenty of intricate and repetitive sounds and those understated vocals. This is very French sounding and I love their sound.

Part of what took me a while to get into this album was the opening track called "La Genese" as we get laid back multi-vocals only and nothing else. Thankfully it's short at under 1 1/2 minutes. But yes this is called getting off on the wrong foot. "Un Soir Tempete" is the guitar/ drum show to start but then some very prominent bass lines arrive as it turns avant sounding, vocals follow as the avant vibe continues. We now get a run of some great sounding tracks starting with "Errance". Percussion leads early on as this repetitive melody slowly builds as the bass then horns then vocals eventually join in. Check out the horns late. Nice. "Ce Cher Serge Est Perdu" opens with what sounds like strummed bass as a beat and more joins in. Catchy stuff as the vocals arrive after a minute. Such a cool track. "Un Monde Englouti" is similar to the previous tune, at least the melody seems to be. This one has more of a psychedelic style and it becomes much more experimental when the vocals stop after a minute. This is so interesting to listen to. Horns after 2 minutes as spoken words come and go.

"Es Algues" is powerful with some screaming guitar. "Vers Le Neant" opens with intricate sounds as the vocals arrive briefly then we hear water sounds. Flute follows in this laid back start. An almost native vibe with the chanting and drums before 2 minutes but it's brief. A relaxed tune overall. "Visions" is by far the longest track at over 11 minutes. Piano and violin to start. A slow beat takes over 1 1/2 minutes in then the piano and strings return. It's building very slowly then bass joins in after 4 minutes along with some guitar expressions. It turns somewhat spacey after 6 minutes and the vocals join in as well. This is good! Love the spacey synths and sound. A change before 9 minutes with some interesting guitar as the bass and drums continue. "Retrouvailles" ends it and this is different from the rest as it brings to mind Brian Eno solo as in "Another Green World". Strummed guitar, horns and multi-vocals with plenty of energy.

I feel this is well worth the 4 stars despite paling somewhat to their 2014 release. This is a band that certainly has a sound that I can't help but appreciate in a major way.