LE MARIAGE DU CIEL ET DE L'ENFER

Although Art Zoyd remains active still today, I consider this sixth album of the last classic period, even if the music had already taken a slightly different twist with the previous Les Espaces Inquiets. Again a double album (as had phase IV had been) this is the music to accompany a Roland Petit ballet. If the name of Roland Petit rings a bell to progheads, it is because Pink Floyd did a project (un-finished and un-recorded) during the DOSTM sessions and Petit was never far away from the prog crowd. The line-up is by now very stable, the group is still without a proper drummer (Daniel Denis being busy in UZ) as the two composers are sharing the percussion work with Soarez and the compositions again fairly even between Hourbette and Zaboitzeff.

Bizarrely this ballet was first premiered in Milano in June 84 then recorded in Switzerland in October, mixed in Belgium during the winter and only organized for representations in France the next spring. Musically speaking the album is well in the line of the previous ones, slightly more accessible than Phae IV and less atmospheric then Especes Inquiets, on the whole, this album is maybe the closest to early Univers Zero's Heresie or Ceux Du Dehors. There are some superb moments, especially Cryogenese (in two parts of 18 and 15 mins) where the winds add an incredible out-of-this-world feel and the rythms are leading you in a transient state of mind, where musical particularities or tiniest details acquire a new meaning or importance. Another excellent moment is the two-part Mouvance, specially the second part which is called 1 - go figure it out for yourself - and that superb piano dictating an infernal rhythm even when it is not present, repeating a haunted crescendo: Du grand art, Monsieur!. Clearly this album actually really deserve its title: the marriage between heaven and hell. The second Cryogenese is the logical prolongation of itself, with some returning themes and its awesomely disturbing (dare I say mind-boggling?) debut section: Wow! And believe me that this is very danceable music also, so the ballet might be worth a viewing if the shows were filmed.

One of the weaknesses of this album is its duration time, because this kind of music is not that easy on the nerves IF you are not used to it, so listening to a double dose of it is usually driving to the overdose. Still quite an impressive and fully worthy AZ album, this could be one of Gerard Hourbette's finest hour.