CA TOURNE

"Ã?a tourne..." is the last Tiemko album, released by the Musea Records after Eric Delaunay's death in a car accident. The CD consists of two parts. Firstly, we get a collection of previously unreleased studio recordings from 1989 to 1996. Secondly, we have a computer program, which is a great addition to the band's most die-hard fans (including me).

Let's talk about the audio content first. The album has only five tracks, which gives us merely 30 minutes of music itself. But what a music this is! From one hand, the music sounds almost nothing like the previous albums, but from the other hand - a watchful ear can hear a lot of familiar sounds and effects. It is extremely weird, experimental and bizarre, even for Tiemko and avant-prog standars. "Hi!" has some great drumming by Mr. Delaunay (truly he was one of the greatest french drummers) and jazzy keyboard chords. "Ã?a tourne...", "Variation" and "Gnome fantaisie" are all impovised tracks, quite simmilar to each other. Every one of them is a great journey, with tons of craziness. The thing I most love about them is usage of various electric drums sounds and dense layers of keyboards. All these things combined give us amazingly strange, yet full of atmosphere improvisations. "H.T.V" is a short bonus track, based on a drum loop, which reminds me of another french group DeBoCo (which Mr. Delaunay was a member of). Cool little track.

Regarding the computer content: the program has its issues. First of all, it doesn't seem to be fully compatible with modern software. I tried to run it on windows 10, and partialy it did work. Sadly, my computer is unable to read the font, so there's nothing I can read really. And even if I could - everything is written in french. However, I was able to check some things. With the program, we get a live video of Tiemko playing "T.87" from their debut album. There is also a discography part, with some audio samples. Some animations and photos are there as well. I've read somewhere that there is a fully-written biography about the band, but I couldn't find it anywhere (because of the lack of compatibility), so I can't guarantee if it's truly there. The resolution is 800x600, so you get the idea that this thing is very obsolete.

In conclusion - overall, I really enjoy this release. Total time is way to short, and should be extended by adding some more material. The music is definitely not for faint-hearted people, but if you enjoy avant-garde - you're going to love it. Because of the obsolescence, the computer content is almost unusable for me, but if you do have an older computer, you should have no problem with it. Like I mentioned before - it's a great thing for the band's die-hard fans, who want to own any extra materials related to the band.

Although the "collectors/fans" sentence may be an accurate description for this album, giving it only two starts would not be accurate at all. After all, the music is very good and refreshing, especially if you like experimental/improvised stuff. If you're new to Tiemko, I'd not recommend starting with this album, but it's definitely a must, if you know all the previous albums already. A very nice addition to your music collection.