OFFERING PART I / PART II

Christian Vander's side project allowing him to properly explore his jazzy side - and doing it pretty well. Lots to like here but also plenty that's a bit of a swing and a miss for my tastes, and a found myself getting quite bored at times.

Part I - Opens like a dawning, all flutes and piano before Stella's vocals and a brass fanfare. The tuneful vocals eventually turn shrieky as the fanfare builds to a crescendo mid-track. It calms down and repeats the pattern once more. Pretty nice opener

Earth - A foreboding bassline kiks in straight away, something of an old Magma signature. Its a jazzy toetapper though, with male vocals once again descending into Zeuhl style shrieks. There's no change to the bass and drum rhythm throughout the 10 minutes so there's not a huge amount of variety

Joia - a very long track starting with scatting over a single piano chord which goes on for almost four minutes before a short passage in English. the chord changes slightly on occasion as a rhythm section builds slowly. It constantly gives the impression that it's building up to something, but it takes 9 minutes until a call and response section starts which dies away again almost immediately into a flute section. Pretty much in the same style with more frantic vocals until 13 minutes in when of all things a bongo solo briefly breaks it up. Long old track for not a lot of content again.

C'est pour nous - far more interesting, twinkly piano and Stella's vocals before a brass section that reminds me of Santana. Vocals duet on occasion

Love In the Darkness - Another long-ish track for not a lot of variety but I did like this one a fair bit. Its a calm start with electronic sounds followed by piano. The calm vocal style for some reason makes me think of Earth Wind and Fire

Tilim M'Dohm - bright and breezy scatty track. Very nice

Mazur-Kojawiak-Oberek, Solitude, Uguma Melimeh Gingeh - A collection of short piano pieces, a calm and choral track, and another very calm one has the album fizzling out a lot for me