CONCEPTUAL EXPERIMENTATIONS

Aspiring to go down a more unpredictable route with his music, Sébastien Gramond's 'Conceptual Experimentations' does live up to its name. With four tracks that could easily be considered 'epics' in terms of their length and scope, there is no argument or denial that Gramond and his music has strayed far from the classic rock ramblings of yesteryear. Unfortunately however, with the exception of the sole short track here, there is very little structure or melody here to make for a convincing, excellent listen, despite the musical ideas here being generally quite good.

'Conceptual Experimentations' begins with the first progressive suite of the album, 'Happy To Be'. Featuring only one recurring hook- used sparsely throughout the piece- most of the music is driven by the instrumental work of Gramond, which is successful to varying degrees. While he seems to put alot of soul into his guitar work, the rest of the musicianship feels bland; a common issue with one-man bands. Having heard this on the 'More Homeworks From The 90's' compilation, this track is fairly familiar to me, although the composition is done a better justice here in terms of its place in the album..

'Neuralgia' is also of some worthy mention; it is the most experimental Gramond track I have yet heard. Very driven by synthesized percussion patches and sound effects, there is no real melody to grasp on here, but the sheer obscurity and erratic nature of the drum programming makes it sound amateurish, yet interesting. Some great Gothic organ work is also put into play in between the experimental sessions of the album.

The final three tracks take a much less experimental approach. 'So Easy' is the one short track here; a sort of intermission between the larger bodies of work. An acoustic track, it has some very warm sounds and even some decent vocals from Sébastien Gramond himself. Now, onto the second half of the album... 'Hither And Thither' and 'Austral Winds' are both highly reminiscent of classic symphonic prog like Genesis, and although they both feature some beautiful instrumental sections, they both ultimately feel listless as overall compositions.

It is very interesting to see Sébastien Gramond develop as an artist like this, and 'Conceptual Experimentations' is certainly among the first Gramond albums I have listened to that requires quite a few listens to sink in. As good as the musical ideas are however, they require a better context.