VOICI LA NUIT TOMBÉE

One of the rare examples of a French band influenced by the jazz-rock sounds of England's Canterbury Scene, the Besançon based band TRAVELLING was a jazz-rock trio that featured the virtuosic keyboard wizardry of founder and lead vocalist Yves Hasselmann along with bassist Jacques-Edmond Gouré and drummer Roger Gremillot. Having started out with the more proper French moniker Le Point, the band was forced to change it due to the fact that another band had already claimed it. The rather dubious band name TRAVELLING was adopted and while it lacks any sort of character at least advertised Hasselmann's infatuation with English prog.

Another band that was relegated to the obscurity bins, TRAVELLING's sole album VOICI LA NUITE TOMBEÉ (Here Is Nightfall) was released in 1973 and was France's answer to Robert Wyatt's tenure with Soft Machine which provides the Canterbury template upon which the album's six tracks revolve around. Revolving around Hasselmann's piano leads, the music varies from frenetic piano jams and cyclical loops to crazy psychedelic freakouts but mostly rooted in Canterbury flavored mood setting piano rolls which more often than not are exclusively instrumental. When vocals do occur they are straight out of the Robert Wyatt playbook and if you didn't know better may even mistake this album for some sort of lost Wyatt experiment.

The highlight of the album is the side A swallowing title track which at 18 minutes takes a journey through many styles of not only Canterbury tales but jazz-rock, progressive rock and even Krautish psychedelic freak outs. The album is generally laid back and never really rocks out. The keyboardist is completely dominant as the bass and drums simply play follow the leader which makes this album feel fairly lopsided much in the vein of Emerson, Lake and Palmera however influences from Soft Machine, Supersister, Egg even France's most famous Canterbury replicators, Moving Gelatine Plates can be heard all throughout the album's run. While the warm tones of the fuzzy bass and period piece organ sounds are competent what TRAVELLING fails to accomplish is a true sense of originality.

The second side is dominated by piano-led jazz trio sounds steeped in Canterbury sensibilities but somehow fail to impress beyond the competence of emulating their favorite English underground influences. While quite varied in terms of changing things up over the course of the album's run, the music sort of lollygags along at a somnambulant pace and never really reaches its potential. If you compare TRAVELLING to fellow countrymen Moving Gelatine Plates, they just don't compete as they lack the fiery passion to craft explosive new dynamics that incorporate any personal creative spin on the already been there done that Wyatt years of Soft Machine. Some seem to find this one a great listening experience but i'm a bit underwhelmed by the whole affair. Good album for Canterbury fans who want to dig deeper but i can't say this is one i'll be returning to soon.