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The Forgas Band Phenomena was founded by veteran French composer and drummer
Patrick Forgas, who had recorded Cocktail (1977), featuring an all-star line-up of Magma and Zao members and containing
the 18-minute suite My Trip, in the vein of Canterbury's melodic
jazz-rock, and had played keyboards and drum-machines, besides singing, on
L'Oeil (1990) and Art D'Echo (1993).
His next creature, the Forgas Band Phenomena, continued to explore
Canterbury's symphonic rock on three creative albums:
Roue Libre (Cosmos, 1997) for a sextet with saxophone, vibraphone and keyboards, containing the two lengthy suites
Serum De Verite (18:30) and Roue Libre (20:10),
Extra-Lucide (1999), containing Pieuvre A La Pluie (19:26),
and
Soleil 12 (2005), recorded live by an octet (with two saxophones, trumpet, violin and keyboards) and containing Coup De Theatre (34:47)
and Pieuvre A La Pluie (18:18).
They all share the intense non-stop rhythm of Forgas and whichever bassist plays next
to him, while the shifting line-ups gives each album a different personality.
In the meantime Forgas had released another solo album, the
instrumental electronic Synchronicite (2002).
L'Axe du Fou (Cuneiform, 2009), that maintains only Forgas and keyboardist Igor Brover of the previous line-up, added
the vibrant La Clef, in which
the instruments take shifts at singing variations on the main theme
at a rabid pace (with a nice contrast between the youthful
fibrillations of the violin and the calm meditations of the reeds),
L'Axe Du Fou (16:32), in which a neoclassical flute and a hard-rocking
guitar form the counterpoint for ethereal saxophone phrases (but the highlight
might be the way the leitmotiv gets deconstructed into cascading piano notes)
although the piece meanders a bit in the second inconclusive half (almost
reminiscent of new-agey jazz-rock),
and a "short" excerpt of Double-Sens (13:50), that opens with a violin-driven section worthy of a neoclassical ballet and weaves that strand with hints
of Soft Machine's electronic jazz-rock (that prevails in the second half).
The sound on this album is almost baroque.
Karolina Mlodecka, in particular, takes her place among the greatest rock violinists of all times.
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