CIRCONVOLUTIONS

A legend is back! Remember: the famous Crypto label, created by Jean-Claude Pognant, contributed in discovering French bands as essential as Ange by the mid seventies. Among those was Carpe Diem. Led by Claude-Marius David (saxophone & flute), this band from Nice gave birth to two splendid albums: "En Regardant Passer Le Temps" (1975) and "Cueille Le Jour" (1976). All reissued by Musea on the CD form. Their refined progressive rock featured rare vocal parts (but was never boring or demonstrative), instrumental intensity, through sophisticated songwriting and structures. Fluid organ reworked sounds were beautifully combined with lyrical flute, sax, clarinet parts or airy guitars, to create a dreamlike rock evoking Ange, Caravan, Fruupp and King Crimson ('Starless') with a very slight jazz touch. Well, you'll find the charm of the past in 'Tibetan Moment' (those gorgeous keyboards!), the great circumvolutions structures in 'Circonvolutions' precisely. 'Wedding Day' recalls Sting's 'An Englishman in New Yrok' a bit by the instrumentation (!). And nostalgia fully operates with the superb 'Jardin de verre' and 'L'imagerie fantastique', both unpublished typical labyrinthine epics from 1978. Yes, a legend is back!