Suonano jazzcore i La Part maudite (moniker che rimanda direttamente a un saggio di Georges Bataille), trio (Mivil Deschenes al basso e ai “pedali”, Patrick Dion alla batteria e Philippe Battikha alla tromba) proveniente da Montréal, Canada.

Our Balls Are Like Dead Suns è il loro esordio (edito dalla & Records) e presenta un alternarsi di distorsioni e assalti ritmici, paesaggi tenebrosi e algidi incantesimi che, per certi versi, potrebbero far pensare alle ultimissime prove dei Supersilent (si ascolti, per esempio, la cupissima Barnacle Bay). In questo gioco di contrasti anche veementi (Panic Park, Boxer Blood, Maison des jeunes) sta tutto il significato ultimo di queste composizioni, tutte sostenute da una buona ispirazione.

La densa, claustrofobica bruma che apre Ladyburn si tinge di desolazione grazie al timbro Davis-iano della tromba, ma poi, tra vibranti squarci elettrici, solidi tappeti ritmici e deragliamenti più o meno controllati, si entra nel vivo della questione, passando lungo le infernali saturazioni avant-shronk di Asbestos e le fattezze claudicanti di Barnacle Bay. Quella di Half-Sucked Egg, invece, è una marcia funebre che va in accelerando tra virulenze noisy e concretismi austeri, mentre Lixiviate procede spiraleggiando acida e convulsa. Da seguire.

Titel des Jahres: Our Balls Are Like Dead Suns (&07)! Der Trompeter Philippe Battikha, Mivil Deschênes am Bass und Patrick Dion an den Drums wählten sich in Referenz an Georges Bataille zudem den verschwenderischen Namen La Part Maudite und beides zusammen verpflichtet natürlich zu exzessiver Musik, die durch massive Pedaleffekte auch erzielt wird. Die Trompete nimmt es mit jeder E-Gitarre auf, was Verzerrung und Intensität angeht. Dazu rockt Dion, als ob er es mit dem Potlatch ernst meint. Maison des jeunes wechselt abrupt zwischen zart und brutal und bleibt dann mit heftigen Schlägen bei Letzterem. Boxer Blood puncht sture Viertel, dann Stop und Go und schnelle Wirbel. Als wären Dion und Deschênes bei Jacopo Battaglia und Massimo Pupillo, der furiosen ‘RhythMachine’ von Zu, in die Lehre gegangen. Half-Sucked Egg beginnt mit tubadunklem Gebläse und nur spröd gezupfen Saiten zu leichthändigem Tickling, aber dann nimmt Der Verfemte Teil knirschend und klackend immer mehr Tempo auf und steigert sich in einen Blutrausch, fängt sich, aber leckt sich schon wieder die Lippen nach mehr. Die Trompete steuert von einer Fuzzorgie zur nächsten, nur in den wenigen gedämpften Momenten, dem Auftakt von Panic Park etwa, kommt einem das Wörtchen Jazz in den Sinn. Die Besinnung ist aber immer nur von kurzer Dauer. Schon geht wieder ein Noisegewitter auf die lyrische Trompete nieder. Poesie gibt es nur unter Spannung und Zerreißprobe. Aber sie ist unstillbar, unauslöschlich, Phönix aus der Asche, Pegasus aus dem Blut der azephalischen Medusa, eine Ejakulation von melodischem Überschuss, wenn auch mit bitterem, aschigem Beigeschmack.

Canada’s Et Records has been going since 2003, and so far released nine releases. These three are all recent, so their catalogue suddenly expands in a big way. We find this label in the world of improvised music. The first one is by one Jean René, who plays acoustic and electric viola and electric guitar. Unlike many of his peers, René plays his instruments in such a way that we can recognize them. The viola is a viola, the guitar is a guitar. That is, perhaps to some, a traditional approach, and that’s also an approach we find in his music. A piece like Outardes sound almost like baroque music. That is however a rarity. Another rarity is Morue, which is the most onkyo piece around here. In his other pieces he shows a love for minimal music in a classical sense. He uses a bit of delay on some of the pieces, to add that sustaining sound. Sometimes it reminds me of very old Steve Reich or Philip Glass music (Prune could be a small version of Violin Phase), but René keeps his pieces very short (somewhere between two and five minutes) and presents them as small miniatures.

Behind Mecha Fixes Clocks we find Michel F Côté (keyboards, electronics, microphones, drums and percussions), but unlike his other releases, this is not a solo or duo work, but, at least from what I gather, a work he composed and plays on, but with extended group of thirteen players, among them Martin Tétreault, Tom Walsh and Jean René. Instruments listed include trumpet, flutes, guitar, clarinet, french horn, trombone and such like. Nine pieces of some great orchestral music. Moving slowly, like gentle minimal music, which slowly, over the course of these pieces built up. It combines improvisation (although sparsely here), with minimal glissandi and small melodies, which rise up from those gentle waves of heavily and heavenly layered small orchestral sounds. Think Olivia Block, but perhaps with a bit more improvisation in some parts. Great chamber music, relaxed atmosphere, jolly fine music.

La Parte Maudite is a trio of Philippe Battikha (trumpet, pedals), Mivil Deschênes (bass, pedals) and Patrick Dion (drums). This is, at least for me, the release I didn’t like that much. The music is that of a heavy nature. Loud bursts of controlled and probably less controlled musical outbursts. Music that comes from that specific cross road of improvised music, loud rock and free jazz. Loud and blearing. One of the things that made me not like this that much was the use of the trumpet. It seems to be coming, at least for me, too much from the world of jazz. I understand the raw power and energy of this trio, but in the end the result didn’t win me over. I’d rather go back to the previous two releases.

Un trio montréalais, première fois que je croise ces trois noms: Philippe Battikha (trompette), Mivil Deschênes (basse), Patrick Dion (batterie). Un power trio qui fait dans le skronk, le punk-jazz métissé de funk rock. Dans la veine de (juste) Claudette ou d’Elephant9, orgue en moins. Belle attitude, beaucoup de mordant, sans tomber dans les excès (du moins tout le temps). Un premier effort convaincant.

Lots of balls and promise on this first release by Montréal trumpeter Philippe Battikha’s shredding power trio. Lots of insistence too, good and bad. A unified conception and tireless devotion to repetition of simple materials serve well. A minus is the monochromatic approach to trumpet sound. Played mostly like an overdriven electric guitar, we miss the revealing sound of the open horn. An intriguing engagement between the tender and the ferocious. 7/10

Probablement l’album qui offre le plus de «torque» sur notre scène locale depuis le Failed Musician du groupe Nutsak. Cependant, ici, c’est en plus sérieux. Un groupe à part entière ajoutant une profondeur inégalée par la trompette (parfois-souvent distorsionnée) de Philippe Battikha, les rythmes disjonctées de Patrick Dion et la grosse basse sale, très sale (parfois douce-oh-que-douce) de Mivil Deschenes. Et permettez-nous de nous réapproprier ce terme. «Sale». Messieurs de la scène garage-rock, du nouveau-anti-grunge, du folk-de-sous-sol-mal-enregistré, nous reprenons le terme. Désolé, vous avez eu votre chance. Et si cette affirmation fait ressortir ce qu’il vous reste de ce vieux fond de jeune-contestataire-punk-anti-déréglementation-des-marchés-post-80-90-00, ben mettez le CD de La Part Maudite dans votre vieux discman 90-secondes-anti-skip-extra-bass et préparez-vous à expérimenter la fonte complète de l’ensemble de votre centre nerveux. Du moins, de ce qu’il en reste.