Manafonistas

on life, music etc beyond mainstream

2023 22 Dez

Sylvie COURVOISIER n+1

von: Henning Bolte Filed under: Blog | TB | Tags: , | 4 Comments

 


 
 
 

Looking back on this year this album is clearly my favourite. I followed Sylvie Courvoisier from the beginnings of her musical career through many years and musical constellations. She is maybe the musician i wrote about most. I should collect and review my texts one of these days. This new album is again a big leap in her development. At this moment she already has formed another new group, called POPPY SEEDS, that is as bold as CHIMAERA. It comprises Patricia Brennan (vibraphone), Thomas Morgan (bass) and Dan Weiss (drums). 

 

This entry was posted on Freitag, 22. Dezember 2023 and is filed under "Blog". You can follow any responses to this entry with RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

4 Comments

  1. Henning Bolte:

    Here’s my full comment from the EUROPE JAZZ MEDIA CHARTS:

    In case you want to be get STUNNED by a MASTERPIECE in dark days, listen to this MUSIC coming from a deeper place in space. It is music that necessarily had to be created, had to come into existence and will enrichus immensely. Let yourself pull into its swathe of sound and let you carry by its reverbs, the echoes of our souls. it’s music you have not heard before but it comes as something known to your deeper soul. Strange enough the sounds of the opener “The Red Poppy” immediately triggered associations with the opener of Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew”, and, after a while also associations with Jon Hassell or David Torn. I can better use the German word “Anklänge” here meaning that sounds of Davis, Hassell and Torn were co-sounding now and then in my mind. Courvoisier’s waves and runs arehowever lighter, scurrying, more elusive, more mystic, playing with contrasts of dark and light, the mechanical and flowing, of gliding shadows and wild runs and bursts. The ambient turns into surreal regularly, even getting nightmarish once in a while. There are eminent musical forces next to Courvoisier bringing this magical sound-light-mood fluctuation into our listening reality: Christian Fennesz’ electric guitar washes and Kenny Wollesen’s greatly timed vibraphone gushing. Composition and performance are two poles of an amazing continuum that manifests and merges in our ears, mind and soul. One of Courvoisier’s sources of inspiration, the works of visual artist Odilon Redon (1840-1916) , a contemporary of Claude Debussy (1862-1918), made it all more strong, bold and brilliant: as he said “… my drawings inspire and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realness of the un-determined.” (Odilon Redon) This extraordinary music work emerging from a long course of musical exploring development has been released as double album of twice 43 minutes running time. It no doubt deserves a decent vinyl edition!

  2. Henning Bolte:

    And here are two links, one to BANDCAMP and one to video of the group performing at ROULETTE in Manhattan.

    https://sylviecourvoisier.bandcamp.com/album/chimaera

    https://www.youtube.com/live/rgP3S2drSSg?si=BVvCF8KJhTyv1FMb

  3. Michael E:

    Ich habe SC nicht ansatzweise so verfolgt wie du, aber Richard Williams‘s Preisung (s. thebluemoment, seceral weeks ago) brachte mich dazu, das aktuelle Album in absoluter Ruhe zu hören (zudem war ja auch Meister Fennesz dabei, und ich liebte es, wie fein er bei ein, zwei Thomas Stronen CDs mitwirbelte) – und danach landete das Werk auf Anhieb in meinem Rückblick.

    https://www.manafonistas.de/2023/11/27/the-year-in-20-favourite-albums/

    Da ich 2024 voll mitmische im Jazzprogramm des DLF, bin ich gespannt, ob die Poppy Seeds zeitnah zu einem meiner Abendmagazine 2024 veröffentlicht werden.

  4. Christoph Bledowski:

    auch für mich ein musikalisches Highlight in 2023
    Grüße aus Frankfurt
    Christoph


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