“As for me, Bertrand is a treasure hidden in the world of the music. Musical, poetic and electronic, this album solidifies my perception”
1 Chuchotements 1:51
2 Soli Tune 3:16
3 Pour le Dire 2:13
4 Le Grand Voyage 13:37
5 Appel Intérieur 4:36
6 Pour Arnaud 4:02
7 Harmonie d'un Jour 4:20
8 Irisationd Part I 4:34
9 Irisationd Part II 3:24
10 Souvenir de Jeunesse 18:08
11 Pour Arnaud Part II 2:42
12 Frottements 1:32
13 Si Loin 4:19
(CD 67:33) (V.F.)
(Berlin School, Modern Classical)
Arpeggios of glasses hesitate to waltz in the unknown. Pushed by the winds of a quavering flute, they form a delicate glass ritornellos and whisper Chuchotements which flows like a river of pearl. MORCEAUX CHOISIS is another Bertrand Loreau's intimist work. After Sur Le Chemin, Reminiscences and Sequences, the Nantes' synthesist opens another time the door of his inner-mind and of his souvenirs with 13 tracks written between 2006 and 2011. Much diversified, this album shows the influences and a moods of Bertrand with tracks of an always enchanting sweetness and others more electronic, in the Berlin School vein. It's a delicious mixture where Vangelis and Klaus Schulze meet in the heart of Trans Harmonic Nights' sessions, from Peter Baumann, to end up in the oneiric sweetness of Erik Satie's piano
Soli Tune continues on the call of Chuchotements to stroll like an aria on solitude. Keyboard keys marry the tones of a hybrid guitar where sounds of a harp blend to those of a piano with jazzy moods. Roaming in a dark night, they parade. Sometimes melodious, sometimes clumsy, they parade in an uncertainty beneath pads of a fluty synth and a fine melancholic mist. Soft, Pour le Dire flows into our ears with the same tenderness, but with more musicality, than the short opening track. It's very good and delicate, like all these melodies that we find on this album and on Bertrand's previous albums. I think among others of Appel Intérieur which turns your soul upside down with its flute crying over a bed of mist. This is a track that does moves you, like the very melancholic Pour Arnaud and its crystal arpeggios crying the loss of a friend. Le Grand Voyage shows that Bertrand Loreau is able of an extremely audacious and progressive music while staying melodious. Glass arpeggios with tones of xylophone are spinning around. They are colliding by a mixture of percussions, sudden chords, flute breezes and synth impulses. We are immersed by an influence of Vangelis, Opera Sauvage area, and Klaus Schulze, Dreams era. Twisted and incisive solos wave above this minimalist procession. High-pitched solos, sounding like laments of a solitary saxophone, escort this ascending structure of which the furtive rhythm is adorned by dark keys which move stealthily. It's a slow parade which swarms with a new life after the 6th minute, whereas crystal clear arpeggios turn up. More numerous, they dance and skip nervously on this minimalist cadence, before ending their journey on a dishevelled structure moved by synth and mellotron winds.
Harmonie d'un Jour plunges us into Berlin School structures with a clear influence for Tangerine Dream and mainly the Peter Baumann era. The track waves shyly with sequences which undulate like in the Sorcerer album. But what strikes the most is the melodious envelope. We would definitively imagine being in Trans Harmonic Nights session with these twisted solos, riffs and harmonies which get free from it and feed a cadence which increases subtly. It is a real delight for nostalgic, quite as Irisationd Part I which offers a more nervous tempo with sequences alternating with more vivacity, under the aegis of metallic percussions and especially of these fabulous singings of synth which coo under a fine mellotron mist. Irisationd Part II offers a similar structure but with a more jazzy synth, more crystal clear and nervous sequences and electronic effects. Souvenir de Jeunesse ends this Berlin School immersion with good sequences which shape of an undulatory and hypnotic movement. Like an eternal march, the sequence steps and cross each other while some are more hard-hitting and curt, in a mystic mist. The synth wraps this good sequenced and rhythmic amplitude with cosmic impulses and soft shivering solos. The percussions fall and weigh down this hypnotic minimalist procession which grows rich of crystalline arpeggios sparkling among nice pads of an exhilarating synth. The tempo gets subdivided and enters within spheres of permutations, watered with sharpened and spectral solos, guiding the sequences of Souvenir de Jeunesse towards a foggy finale. After this wonderful intrusion in the Berlin School, MORCEAUX CHOISIS ends with 3 tracks played on piano. These are tender jewels of tenderness and melancholy where Bertrand Loreau amazes and charms with a surprising dexterity.
As for me, Bertrand Loreau is a treasure hidden in the world of the music. Musical, poetic and electronic, MORCEAUX CHOISIS solidifies my perception with a finely elaborated music where the composer and synthesist of Nantes shows off a surprising knowledge by handling styles which overlap in a surprising harmony. Whether it’s melodious or progressive Berlin School, electronic melodies or classical music, Bertrand Loreau weaves beautiful musical paintings which touch inevitably our feelings, the mark of a great composer.
Sylvain Lupari (October 22nd, 2011) *****
Available at PWM Distrib