“A fabulous realm where it's best to walk around with our ears wide open”
1 Le départ de Maman 13:34
2 2, Restez et Peignez 3, La toile non endommagée 4, Feu et Coeur 20:08
3 Le Grand Petit 15:02
(DDL 48:44) (V.F.)
(Movie Music, Progressive EM)
A new album of BySenses never goes unnoticed, even if from now on they will not be in manufactured CD due to the low level of sales. It's a pity because 5 JOURS DE LIBERTÉ belongs to this category of perfect albums. The mastering done by Dries De Vreeze is top-notch. Everything is well balanced in this last album-download of Didier Dewachtere. His sensibility is offered with accuracy, even if this new album presents us an artist who is much more intense here than on his previous albums. Inspired by the French movie Portrait de la jeune fille en feu by Céline Sciamma in 2019, 5 JOURS DE LIBERTÉ takes us to a fabulous realm where it's best to walk around with our ears wide open.
The introduction to Le départ de Maman needs a big atmospheric 8 minutes filled with undulating waves, obscure breezes, absent voices and other elements drifting like the introductory waves and explosions hushed by emotions. This is a dark opening that leads to a fascinating rhythm structure after the 8th minute. Elastic bass percussion echoes over the tinklings of cymbals, leading two manual percussions textures to intertwine their magnetizing charms under a layer of seraphic voices. Caressed by these suave voices, the rhythm hypnotizes us over a distance of 3 minutes to leave towards a finale that justifies all its seconds. 2, Restez et Peignez 3, La toile non endommagée 4, Feu et Cœur also features an almost chthonic atmospheric opening with strong hollow breezes and low voices grasping at more linear synth waves. Electronic effects and chirps roll over stormy waves as the feeling to be an offering for a Black Mass builds. This ominous decor leads us to a delicate and beautiful rhythmic melody around the 7-minute point. The arpeggios jump around diffusing an echo that dances in the luminous synth waves of which the quaking chants take the shape of the rhythmic curves by whistling tunes with a high touching vision. Strange noises invite themselves in the loudspeakers. Clanking sounds coming from who knows where and which could be crackling of fires. Except that they accompany a dense shadow which plunges the title in a psybient universe as uncomfortable as this feeling of being in the Black Mass. 2, Restez et Peignez 3, La toile non endommagée 4, Feu et Cœur then turns into a form of Electronica around the 14-minute mark. Its bed of nervous sequences and percussions is well solidified by a good bass-pulse line as the orchestrations carry the music into those phases where we dance without our feet touching the ground. A piano note falls and resonates in the opening of the wonderful Le Grand Petit. And it is in the disorder of its resonance that Didier lays down a melody to make a rock crying. Two piano lines, one performed by Dries De Vreeze, compete for this musical drama that BySenses composed for his grandson. Melodious and marvellous, these pianos are meant to stir us. And they do! Cymbals give a depth that is accentuated by the overlapping movement of the violins whose staccatos lead us to percussions that fall with a dramatic crash. A single percussion hit that falls at regular intervals, creating a crescendo that eats away at our emotions. The intensity deployed reminds me of a track by Peter Seiler, Passage from the eponymous album with Michael Lorenz's guitar less. A wonderful track that ends an album with colors as stunning as its emotions. A must as they say!
You can hear excerpts from this album, and other unreleased music from BySenses, on the short film 45 minutes de liberté, directed by Owann and Alain Kinet for Canal AntennA and which is available on YouTube. (Click on the blue link)
Sylvain Lupari (November 17th, 2021) *****
Available at BySenses' Bandcamp