LIVE SURANNÉ

« And how little remains of each individual in time, useless as slippery snow, how little trace remains of anything, and how much of that little is never talked about, and, afterwards, one remembers only a tiny fraction of what was said, and then only briefly?»

Extract from « Tomorrow in the battle think on me » by Javier Marias. These words are written in the liner notes, and to a guy like me, it really gets my imagination firing.

Fractalé is what I´d call a philosophical sonic rendition of time and how slippery this sucker is. The spaces between spaces, and the creation of music in a place that´s indifferent to the perception of time. Like other reviewers have commented on, the only thing about this release relegated to time, is perhaps the lack of minutes. I personally want more of this stuff!

This work is almost entirely made up of wind instruments. 3 saxophones, 2 trumpets and a tuba! Add to this enchanting image, some drums and the odd percussive snaps, and if I´m not mistaken some underlying synthesizers bubbling beautifully from underneath.

This album took me completely off guard! I was expecting some Teutonic Magmaesque flavoured fusion, and much to my surprise I was met by what truly sounds like Duke Ellington on shrooms playing Zeuhl!

The piece Fractalé was written by Julian Julien, who also handles the alto saxophone. There´s a sneaky facet to the way these wind instruments are handled, and at times they sound like some mischievous back alley soundtrack - tiptoeing elegantly through dark and brooding streets like a black cat dancing ballet with Lucifer himself.

Going through different pastures of tempers, ranging from some rather esoteric electronic landscapes with the synths forming like small swampy puddles on the base of the music, and these old school big band sweeps of jazzy flavourings - to the towering creatures of sound created by those very same instruments, now snarling and buzzing like gigantic humming bees shouting out in alternating choirs. The whole feel of this live serving by Fractalé strikes me as an unbelievably original take on the theme from Top Cat mixed up with some spacey evil sounding flutters of psychedelic oscillations.

It could be an epilogue of time itself - encapsulating the final chapter of this rather unfathomable concept, which in itself should be quite a handful, but to these ears - Live Suranné stands like a masterly conducted piece of revitalized big band music - played in a way that would make good old Duke soil himself.

Like I said: I want more!!!