L'ENFANT ET LA MÈNURE

"L'Enfant et le M'nure" is a double album release by Italian avant garde artist InSonar. The album was released through Lizard Records (in co-operation with dEN Records) in June 2013. "L'Enfant et le M'nure" was released both as a "stand alone" double album release, but also as a split box set release with "Bath Salts (2013" (also a double album release) by fellow Italian avant garde act NichelOdeon. InSonar is a project created by Claudio Milano and Marco Tuppo (Flag Of Estonia) featuring 62 musicians from 5 continents. Among others artists like Trey Gunn & Pat Mastellotto (King Crimson), Walter Calloni (P.F.M.), Nik Turner (Hawkwind), Paolo Tofani (Area) and Dana Colley (Morphine).

"L'Enfant et le M'nure" is a concept album about "childhood and the power of imagination". The album features both original tracks and cover versions of tracks by David Bowie/Brian Eno, The Velvet Underground, Tim Buckley and revisited Arias by Martini, Gounod and Giordano. "L'Enfant et le M'nure" features a 48 pages booklet with paintings by Marcello Bellina aka Berlikete (MorkObOt) and mosaics by Arend Wanderlust. So it's safe to say it's an ambitious and quite impressive package.

The music on the album is a combination of many musical styles with singer Claudio Milano in focus. His delivery is dramatic, experimental, and virtuosic. His vocal style is paatos filled/theatrical and he spans 7 octaves. Marco Tuppo is an electronic music artist. While the term avant garde is probably the most appropriate to describe the music on "L'Enfant et le M'nure", the tracks are for the most part relatively accessible (I say relatively, because some people will probably find this a great challenge to listen to both sonically and structurally) and a few are even instantly memorable with nice melodic themes (an example of that could be the prog folky parts of "L'Estasi di Santo Nessuno"). There's a strong ambient element on the album too (take a listen to the 12:53 minutes long "Dieci Bambini Cacao") and the music is generally very atmosperic although the dramatic theatrical element is omnipresent. The presence of Marco Tuppo is heard in the way ambient electronic elements are used throughout the album. There are also nods towards opera, classical and jazz in the music. The lyrics are mostly in the Italian language but the cover tracks are sung in English.

"L'Enfant et le M'nure" is a very well produced album and add to that the excellent musicianship and intriguing songwriting and you have a quality release right there. It's a rather challenging listen though and some of the voice experiments and the repetitive nature of some of the ambient tracks can be a bit hard on the ears if you're not accustomed to experimental ambient music. Some parts of the album have me thinking that those parts are interesting, but not necessarily an enjoyable listen. Fortunately most of the album is an enjoyable listen though and a 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.