MESSE EN RÉ MINEUR

Second album, and apparently vastly different from the debut album (haven't heard it yet), but setting the grounds for the following Salammbo and Ludwig albums, the trio composed keyboardist (organ, piano, synth & main composer) Freddy Brua, guitarist Karin Nickerl and violinist Jacques Lichti got help from ultra- soprano singer Eurydice. Graced with a mineral artwork, this unique track (split over two sides of wax) lasting 40-mins is one of the stranger and most unique work you'll find listed in our beloved Archives.

A Japanese-sounding female voice is emerging from the synthesised mist accompanied with a strumming guitar, before the music settles between a constantly changing keyboard setting and the violin (appearing rather late in the album given the group's short line-up), the guitar often remaining in the background. The absence of typical rhythmic instruments (there is a bass at one point, but it might be synth-induced) give the music an even more out of this world feel to MeRM. Difficult to classify Wapassou's music, as the liturgical context is not that far from Magma's choirs at mass time, but I wouldn't really liken the two groups together, but more to some incredibly more positive Univers Zero or the weird French band Catharsis. Brua's Farsifa organ also gives a different flavour to the music than the usual Hammond asd does Eurydice's not always easy to enjoy ultra-high vocals.. While the music in itself has a very aerial feel and often soars in the skies, it fails to really peak and fails to hammer a real climax that would release all of the emotions gathered, since the start of the album. While the music is really "new" to newcomers, the novelty will probably wear off rather quickly, but I wouldn't bet that once the discovery phase is over that you wouldn't come back to it regularly.

Certainly one of the most singular groups around, Wapassou is well in the French tradition of very unusual groups like Magma, Art Zoyd, Flamen Dialis, Dün and a few more totally unclassifiable acts. While I wouldn't recommend Wapassou to beginning progheads, this is likely to astound (at least on the initial discovery) most of the experimented ones.