On his eclectic recording on, Côté has assembled varying groups of notable French Canadian musicians to play mostly original material in a very unorthodox way. His bands range from duos to sextets and each uses an approach to music that is certainty atypical. The music has an eerie sense of illusionism to it, being comprised of electronic and acoustic effects that make the listening experience a strange one. Côté is not a traditional percussionist. He uses various objects and electronic devices to set up odd and asymmetrical rhythm patterns and special effects. He is also a strong advocate of using electronic impulses, dial twisting, and recorded insertions with his music. For example, Chet Baker is in the background on the Let’s Get Lost trip, and elsewhere, turntable static and odd effects filter into the mix to substantiate further the nonuniform nature of the program.
All of his cohorts join in on the fun to give the session its flexible. unpredictable appeal. Derome’s strong playing on baritone and the other reeds is more accessible as is the untypical mellow blowing from trombonist Walsh. Most others go off regularty on diverse tangents. Fradette and Falaise allernate with their unusual approach to guitar playing and others wander in and out of the music in theatric, off-the-wall style. Côté mixes Japanese koto music with etectronic imputses on one piece, white overtaid operatic voices or weird time changes suddenly seem commonplace on other tunes.
Côté appears to be trying to convince us that weirdness is the standard but just when you start gening used to this styte he switches to a very straight-ahead, tongue-in-cheek rendition of a song to prevent you from getting comfortable. His music seems to be designed to keep you off balance. and he succeeds in that endeavor.
