"Improvisation is often described as a dialogue, but with Mehr, Bertrand Gauguet and Didier Lasserre have elevated the form to an almost telepathic communion. Across its four tracks, this album doesn't merely showcase two seasoned improvisers; it crafts a world where sound and silence dance, collide, and ultimately reconcile in breathtaking ways.

The album opens with "Termes de hasard", a fleeting meditation where Gauguet's alto saxophone breathes multiphonic whispers into the void, only to be met by Lasserre's understated percussion - brushes brushing, cymbals sighing. It's the kind of interplay that invites deep listening, pulling you into a soundscape so delicate it feels like eavesdropping on the cosmos.

But the heart of Mehr is the sprawling "Le faire et le défaire". Clocking in at nearly 20 minutes, this piece is an odyssey of textures and tensions. Gauguet bends the saxophone into an entirely new vocabulary - part sigh, part scream - while Lasserre's percussion acts as both anchor and agitator, grounding the piece even as it teeters on the edge of chaos. There's a tactile quality to their performance, as if you can hear the friction of ideas being exchanged and reshaped in real time.

"Une lame réversible" is a sharp, cutting interlude, its brevity hiding a world of nuance. The title translates to "A reversible blade", and true to form, the piece slices through the album's ambiance with decisive precision. Gauguet's sax here feels like a blade being sharpened, while Lasserre's sparse strikes echo like the forge.

The closing track, "Reprise - L'écart", is a study in contrasts - spare yet rich, restrained yet emotive. It leaves the listener suspended in an unresolved tension, a fitting conclusion for an album that thrives on the unpredictable.

Imagine John Cage meeting Eliane Radigue in a Parisian café, where the espresso machine sputters in counterpoint. That's Mehr: not just music, but a philosophy of sound that insists on the beauty of the incidental and the profoundness of the barely audible. It's as if Gauguet and Lasserre have taken the idea of silence and given it a body, an instrument, and a voice.

Both artists bring illustrious resumes to the project. Gauguet, a Paris-based saxophonist, has collaborated with titans of the experimental music world, from Éliane Radigue to John Tilbury. His interests in breath, frequency, and the thresholds of audibility are palpable here. Lasserre, with his background in free jazz and his fascination with silence, acts as the perfect foil. His percussion is less about rhythm and more about the poetic possibilities of sound - what Robert Bresson might call "the invention of the instrument as it is".

The album's sound owes much to Richard Comte, who recorded, mixed, and mastered these improvisations with an ear for detail that feels almost voyeuristic. Meanwhile, the cover art by Katrin Bremermann - a minimalist abstraction - acts as a visual echo of the music's ethos: simplicity that conceals complexity."-Vito Camarretta, Chain D.L.K.

"Strap on for some improvised music. That's what I thought when I opened the package. I know Bertrand Gauguet as a saxophone and seeing Didier Lasserre's name for the first time as the drummer, this isn't a strange thought. His background is in jazz and improvisations, much like Gauguet's who's who in this field. The music is improvised but not as traditional as I assumed. Sometimes ago, I mentioned the presence of saxophone players in improvised music, which isn't something happening here. It very much is the way Gauguet plays his horn and what the two sets as a direction for the four pieces; "rooted in listening to silence. The breaths and multiphonics of the saxophone are met by resonant impacts, friction and uncertain rhythms, all materials that produce intuitive forms linked to inhabited spaces". This means Gauguet plays mostly long-form tones that resemble sinewaves more often than not. Lasserre adds similar minimal percussion, alternating between ultra short attacks on toms, cymbals and snares, and sometimes with a bit more sustain. Gauguet's saxophone occasionally sounds less sinewave-like, more saxophone, and there is some excellent interaction there, not just between the two players but also in how they choose what sounds to play on their respective instruments, from a more traditional approach to something more extreme. By no means an easy release, but a lovely one for sure."-Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly