LE BUREAU CENTRAL DES UTOPIES

A gorgeous folk jazz album from a group of Québec virtuosi going by the name, Conventum. The band was, unfortunately, short-lived, but this album remains as a testament to their amazing instrumental prowess. Tightly- woven ditties that sometimes feel like Celtic reels, at others like Arabic folk stories, and still others like avant-jazz, this is an album well worth your listen. There are not many syrupy, catchy melodies but brilliantly constructed harmonic and temporal weaves abound.

1. "Le reel des élections" (2:48) straightforward reel with impressive cohesion from all instruments, including electric bass and electric guitar. (4.333/5)

2. "Ateliers I et V" (4:12) (8.6667/10)

3. "Fondation" (6:13) very impressive, intricate whole-group interweaving. (8.6667/10)

4. "Choregraphie lunaire" (8:18) lots of experimental sound percussives fill the "Moonchild"-like opening section. In the second minute acoustic guitar and violin emerge as the leaders with some eerie, nearly UNIVERS ZERO type of chromatic melody-making. The music settles into a very pleasing, even beautiful, support tapestry over which the gorgeous violin and, later, electric guitar do some impressive soloing. The plaintive violin play in the final two minutes is so heart-wrenching. Very cool song. Definitely a top three for me. (19/20)

5. "La belle apparence" (2:15) sounds and feels like background processional music in a beer hall of military campus. (4.333/5)

6. "Fanfare" (4:25) sounds and feels like a Stephane Grappelli Django Reinhardt jam session. Impressive skills but not a lot of melody or emotion. (8.5/10)

7. "Trois petits pas" (4:19) a very spacious yet deceptively full and nicely multi-level melodic song. Amazing to think that humans conceived and constructed this. Another top three song. (9.5/10)

8. "Le reel à mains" (3:26) ticking wall clocks and café conversational noises open this before metallic-sounding guitar (dulcimer?) strumming, hand percussion (including clapping), support violin soloing. Very cool capture. (8.875/10)

9. "Le bureau central des utopies" (10:12) recorded live while the band was touring Belgium, this is another favorite. After 36 minutes without vocals, it is weird to hear André's poetic vocal in the first half of this. Thereafter, the weave sounds quite familar: as if a mélange of the key elements and components of the album's previous songs and moods. Interesting how André's electric guitar injections join in at the halfway point and the electric bass becomes more of a presence thereafter. André's soloing in the eighth and ninth minutes sounds so much like today's "microtonal" guitar explications. My third top three song. (18/20)

Though feeling, at times, rather cold and mathematical, the stark sound and whole-group concentration/dedication that comes through with this album's music has always, for some reason, resonated with me. I would never call this music "warm" or emotional; it is calculated, cerebral, even surgical--perhaps even more "classical" than most other Prog Folk albums despite the very prominent omni-presence of the electric guitar and electric bass. I extoll this album as a very shining example of truly professional Progressive Folk music.

88.875 on the Fishscales = B+/4.5 stars; a near-masterpiece of highly technical, almost avant or experimental Prog Folk.