LA MORT D'ORION

Gerard Manset is a singer/ songwriter from France who plays piano, and he made a name for himself in France during the seventies. This particular album "La Mort d'Orion"(Death of Orion) is like a symphony for the end of the World. A melancholic album with plenty of vocals and spoken words from Gerard, plus we have male and female guest singers. And a string quartet! This comes across as very orchestral, string driven music with plenty of french vocals. A low key affair for the most part.

And while this may be his most celebrated work, and from 1970, it would be his 1975 release "Y'a Une Route" that sold 300,000 copies that would put Manset on the map. He was horrified. He never played live, feeling it was like being in a zoo. Never gave interviews or promotional appearances. I like this guy. He was a painter and very artistic with other interests so he certainly didn't need to stay in the music business if he didn't want to. But he did, and has released something like 25 studio albums including one this year!

The site shows the self titled opening track as being 24 1/2 minutes long which is shown on some issues. My cd has that track broken down into five named songs starting with "Introduction" and ending with "Final". And the self titled track is in there at song two and almost 8 1/2 minutes. So a little different than the original vinyl releases. I was into my second spin of this one when later in it I said to myself "There is something special about this record".

No it's not exactly my style with the vocals so prominent including the reading of texts and poetry, or the orchestral stuff, but I can't deny that between Gerard's vocals and those strings I'm sold on this. Maybe not as much as I am on some of my favourite solo artists like Pascal Duffard, Franco Battiato, Alan Sorrenti, Claudio Rocchi and many more, but it's that inventiveness and uniqueness that seems to rise to the top with these artists from Italy and France. I should mention there is sitar on here as well, and flute along with drums at times. The liner notes fail to tell us the instruments and players involved, just the vocalists.

A low 4 stars for this one, but I can't deny that there's something special about this recording.