Disques Tromblas 1977 & Village 1979 / Castle 2024
Long-forgotten mavens of French fusion refract their past through the latter-day lens to secure the ensemble’s two-album legacy.
Mets tes lunettes et écoute comme ça sent bon! –
Volume 1
The second part of the ’70s might have been the golden era of chanson on the Gallic scene yet, alongside the likes of Joe Dassin and Michel Legrand who reigned supreme when it came to easy listening, there were artists like Didier Marouani and the Llabador brothers whose respective collectives, SPACE and COÏNCIDENCE, explored more cosmic, if less universal, possibilities. But while the former band found commercial success and cross-frontier popularity, the latter’s output languished in obscurity for decades to become ripe for rediscovery now, long after one of the siblings, Jean-Claude, perished in a car crash back in the day and not long after after Jean Pierre almost shared his fate. Perhaps willed into existence by his sense of mortality, these reissues are rather welcome, though – not in the lest thanks to their effervescent buoyancy; still, why each of the two separate, and short, discs of “Mets tes lunettes” omits a piece and rearranges the original running order is a question begging to be answered.
Mets tes lunettes et écoute comme ça sent bon! –
Volume 2
Not that it mattered much in the grand scheme of things, where mini-epic “Les Grenouilles” on the group’s 1977 self-titled debut sees the most ingenious use of wah-wah pedal, Jean Pierre Llabador’s guitar fooling around with his namesake Barreda’s bass on the scintillating surface of his brother’s ivories and hinting at what the jovial “Si t’es reggae” on their 1979 sophomore effort “Clef de ciel” would take to the rhythmic fore. All of this is laid out in less strict manner than the crisp panorama of the record’s opener “Berceuse Chinoise” which projects muscular, albeit filigreed, jazzy licks and reveals an infectious pentatonic figure – a scale essay to be reprised, from a different angle, in the exquisite “Séquences” which betrays the musicians’ love for folk motifs and funky sparkle. However, the acoustically tinctured serenade “Soleils” and baroque vignette “Exil N°1” propose a fresh view on the ensemble’s lyricism, as six strings soar to conjure a magical solo only to end so abruptly as to stun the listener into silence, unlike in “Canevas” which exposes the romantic wonders keyboards are able to bring forth, and in “Sucre d’orge” which bares the beauty of the band’s harmonic interplay and melodic scope of their riffs.
And this is how, in turns shimmering and blazing, the exuberant, yet also elegiac, “L’autre face” introduces the band’s second album, as synthesizers sound brashly adventurous, and robust fretboards reflect that blinding light even on the raga-tinged, sax-smeared “Miroir” and “Azigu” which bounces up and down on its tightly woven chords. And whereas the piano-propelled “Agawé” adds a solemn, interstellar expanse to the impressive mélange of styles and allows dance beats to seep into layers of unison and inform “À toi, à moi” with disco vivacity and rock ‘n’ roll jive, “Tu parles” cavorts across electric fields of its tune with a lot of panache. Factor in a touch of exotic sonics on “Côté cour, côté jardin” which Michel Montoyat’s bottom-end motions anchor to the ground, and the visions offered on “Mets tes lunettes” will indeed make you feel good. A worthy brace of reissues.
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