RICHARD OF YORK GAVE BATTLE IN VAIN

ROYGBIV is an album (they called it an EP at the time with its 32 minutes duration) apart in DAAU's discography, clearly the group's attempt to go rock, and actually being quite successful at it. This EP was written for a modern dance by choreographer Thierry Smits and Compagnie Thor, and starts a return to their early music (after some catastrophic experiments in Life Transmission), but we're not quite there yet.

Six tracks named after colours. After the opening intro (10secs in total), Red starts out like a Saucerful- era Floyd, but melancholic cello drones sound change that, the track almost veering techno under a drum machine, with guest Yamina Cheurfa vocalizing and youyou-ing in the background, the organ returning for a while and the track slowly disappearing into an electronic growl. Green is much more along the usual DAAU mode, with Simon's cello and Adrian's minimalist piano leading the track onwards until an abrupt stop, before starting as if nothing had happened, but Green strongly evolved with its electronic background, stopping for a violin/piano interlude, before the infernal march goes on, than a slow accordion drone passage ends the track quietly. Blue picks up where green had left it, developing from slow accordion cosmic drones, into slower cello growls, mosquito-like violin but the track never takes height, just hovering in the gloomy bass tremors. It actually makes me think of an ambient Univers Zero.

Orange is a stark contrast, returning to the Eastern European folk/gypsy jazz music of their first albums, complete with a French-spoken count-up of things to do over cello staccatos. Indigo takes on an Arabian beat, but the strings are counterpointing it, until they win and the track veers binary with the strings dictating the electric piano, while unison vocals are making this track yet another winner in an album cumulating them. The closing Violet starts eerily dissonant, keeping the gloomy UZ mood that pervaded in Blue, but adding modern-symphonic (Russian composers) moments.

Quite a departure from the first album, and soooo much better than their middle albums (Difficult Times), ROYGBIV is IMHO, DAAU's most interesting release, but I wouldn't call it representative of the usual DAAU sound. Too bad it's so short, although I'm reluctant to call this an EP, but if the artistes chooses the term, who am I ...