SIX FRENCHMEN IN AMSTERDAM - LIVE AT PARADISO

Of the new wave of prog groups from the new millennium, one of the most original is the French group Lazuli, who presents the particularity of having invented and built some of their instruments and very-modified others. Indeed Claude Leonetti plays the Leode, a sort of Chapman stick with an electronic base hidden in a tiny body; it is played even more upright than a stick and sitting down and Claude pulls some sounds that can be assimilated to synthesizers keyboards, especially in the drones or layers by sliding on the chords, rather than strumming them with a pick, but he also pulls some magnificent solos. The other invented instrument is the Warr guitar of Sylvain Bayol, which looks like a double stick in width (imagine Tony Levin having two Chapman glued side by side and restrung) and this invention is carried more like a guitar, but develops bass guitar sounds, most probably providing mant more notes in that type of frequency that a normal bass. Gederic Byar's electric guitars is also midified electronically and produces some bizarre sounds especially with the slide. On the "look" front, these guys could be confused with the Ozric bunch if they were not wearing the Kobaian de-rigueur black.

Musically speaking Lazuli can be thought as a cross of Wetton-era Crimson, the dynamics and dramatics of Ange and some more neo-prog groups, like the Belgian group of AmAndA (singer Dom's voice mainly), but the group doesn't have (at least at this point) a keyboard player (see my remark below about this), but has two percussionists including a stand-up drummer and a vibraphonist, but one of the guitarists also plays the Metalophone. The music is very much lyrical, the individual musicians are seemingly virtuoso at their respective crafts and even more, since there is a track at the 2/3 of the concert, where most of them change instruments, just for kicks and panache (or show-off if you wish). The group tries to speak Dutch (and English, when unable to say it in Vondeel's tongue) and it seems appreciated, and this complements the group's obviously wide-open frame of mind as their music present a definitive "ethnic" feel or influence, but I wouldn't classify their music in the world music racks either. They definitely rock.

I'm not exactly sure when in their line-up changes this DVD recording took place, but there arte a few troubling bits that seem to diminish the group's authenticity, namely that Dominique Leonetti (that's Claude's twin brother, certainly looks like it) has some of the songs' texts in his palm (this is a bit of a detail and does not interfere with the band's performance), and more importantly there are some (a non-negligible amount) of pre- recorded bits that are played back; notably some keyboards layers, kids choirs, and tape effects of well-known politician voices - Lazuli is very politically and socially minded, but this is lost to non-French speakers. The six-man formation does indeed create a fairly personal soundscape, but does not vary its spectrum enough and the sheer repetition of tracks repeating the musical climates does become tiring for the unitiated or even the casual fan, but the group is talented enough to keep you riveted to your seat if you haven't destroyed in the first few songs. Despite this release being rather short (no encore filmed) this DVD seems like the perfect introduction to the band's oeuvre, because it is useful to see their special instruments' possibilities.