NOCE CHIMIQUE

4.5 stars. Hungarian born Yochk'o Seffer started to make a name for himself in the sixties playing the jazz circuit in Paris, France. The man is an incredibly talented sax player and keyboardist. Christian Vander approached him personally about playing for MAGMA, who at that point had just released their debut. Seffer bought in and played on MAGMA's second record "1001 Centagrade". After that recording Seffer and Francois Cahen, MAGMA's keyboardist decided to leave and form their own Zeuhl band called ZAO.

Eventually Seffer would start his solo career beginning with his "Neffesh Music" series which included his first three albums. "Delire" from 1976, "Ima" from 1977 and "Ghilgoul" from 1978. What makes this compilation album "Noce Chimique" so important are the five unreleased tracks from the "Ghilgoul" period. Back in 1995 a similar compilation to this was released under the "Neffesh-Music" title. When they re-issued this in 2011 they decided to change the final three tracks along with the cover art and album title.

So we get one track from "Delire" which is awesome because one of my all time favourite drummers Jean-My Truong is on that one, and he of course is from ZAO. That song is "Orkana" by the way. The closer "Fifra-Variations" is from "Ghilgoul" and is something else. This is live, and the story goes that the Hungarian pianist and Hungarian violinist both told Seffer before playing this one that it was too difficult for them. And these two musicians are incredible by the way. So Seffer tells them both just to improvise while he plays the main piano parts. So a trio of two pianos and violin and you should hear this! It's just surprising the passion and power on display.

Dominique Bertram is the main bass player on this recording and from ZAO, along with the Margand String Quartet who also played with ZAO, and they are on three tracks. Finally we also get the great Maurica Platon adding her incredible vocals to that opener and some wordless stuff too elsewhere. This compilation is the perfect companion to that "Ghilgoul" record. In fact, if you include these two records along with a few of the early ZAO albums, you will have some of the best music ever recorded in my opinion.

That was my initial takeaway as I re-visited this all last week was that this music really is on another level compared to a lot of what I'm into. Seffer has a unique "sound" that's for sure when playing the sax. Ornette Coleman was one of his favourites and an inspiration to him for sure. This compilation really is a must in my opinion, and will be paired in my collection with "Ghilgoul" the prefect match.