NIMAL

2.5 stars. NIMAL rose from the ashes of DEBILE MENTHOL with multi-instrumentalist Jean-M Rossel leading both bands. Based in Switzerland these two groups were very much in the rio/avant realm. NIMAL's self titled debut was released in 1987 and it really comes across as a solo album by Rossel. He produced and mixed this record but the man also composed and arranged all of the music and is all over this with his playing. Five of the other six members only play on one track each, with the other member Tom Cora actually playing on four of the eleven songs. He's playing cello on two of them, vocals and bass on one each. I should mention that the sax player Didier Pietton played with ART ZOYD during the first half of the eighties. Again he's only on one track.

There's a lot of short tracks here with eleven tracks over just 32 1/2 minutes and Rossel's hurdy gurdy is all over this record. There's a strong folk element here besides the avant. I have no favourites here. This was a difficult album to play repeatedly I'll tell you that. Even one of the band members was quoted as saying this was a subpar representation of what they were working on at the time. And there has been no cd issue for this one because of that, but they did do a cd re-issue for their second and much better album "Voix De Surface" from 1990.

It's hard for me to even find any highlights here but "Un Drame" is different with that dark and melancholic sound. Maybe "La Marelle" with the deeper sounds for a change with those bass and drums. Or perhaps "Animal Triste" but I think that's because the track before it is my least favourite, while this one is sparse with sax and synths standing out.

I am a much bigger fan of DEBILE MENTHOL but I know avant fans love NIMAL's second record "Voix De Surface" where it all seemed to come together for them, and a huge improvement on this the debut. A low 3 stars.