Return of the New Thing

Alchemy

Label: Not Two Records Country: Poland

"This quartet mines some open spaces with commitment but the results aren't really all that involving. This is due in no small part to the fact that their focus seems to ebb and flow. This results in music that's at some moments diffuse, and at others full of the kind of all-out intensity that's mostly rhetoric and little substance.

The three track titles refer only to the duration of each piece in minutes and seconds. That nominal approach applies to the music itself. "29.09" has entered a passage of squall by the time the sixth minute is reached and the result sounds like four musicians in search of an idea. Drummer Edward Perraud injects some levity into proceedings when he's not approaching his drums as though they deserved assault and battery, but his band mates seem intent on whipping up some kind of ecstatic storm the like of which is hit and miss in terms of impact. By the time the eleventh minute has rolled around that mood has dissolved and it's in such quieter passages that the music comes to life. Jean-Luc Guionnet stutters into his alto sax and the group imperative is clearly something other than sound for its own sake. [...]"-Nic Jones, All About Jazz