BODY CONTROL

'Body Control' - Sébastien Gramond (6/10)

Sébastien Gramond's 'Body Control' is fairly jazzy and funky, making use of some chilled vibes and nice guitar jamming that is very reminiscent of '60s psychedelia. As the album goes along its path, things generally begin to lean towards Gramond's more experimental side, as can be seen into the trippy electronic title track 'Body Control'. Like virtually all of Sébastien Gramond's albums that I have come across, things are very diverse here, but 'Body Control' isn't so over the place and scattered as many of the others. Instead, there is a trend of going from one style and gradually moving towards other ones as the album pushes through. The result is a feeling of a somewhat intentioned journey rather that a mish-mash collection of genres.

The most memorable track here is certainly the title track, which has some cool counterplay between psychedelia and electronic dance music. A strong sense of melody is also employed, and although the track is quite drawn out and spread (as much dance music is), it falls back to a theme which keeps it all together. Earlier in the album, the songwriting never feels as interesting, but the guitar soloing of Gramond makes up for it somewhat; a jazzy style of improvisation that works quite well. As has been said, 'Body Control' continues down a weirder path as it moves along, and this strange feeling culminates in the dark organ piece 'My Dear, My Fear', which uses gothic organ dabbling, overlapped choral vocals and strange screaming to get across a vibe close to that of fellow French musicians Magma. An interesting way to close a Sébastien Gramond album, no doubt.

Quite a good album from Sébastien Gramond, although it does feel that even though the album is fairly cohesive, large sections of composition could have been improved upon to make for a better product.

After a very good start with a 12 minutes jazzy track, I'm perplexed about "There's A Place For You To Run Away" that initially sounds very similar to Pink Floyd's "Crumbling Land". But after what I consider a false start, it changes drastically toward noisy post rock. Sometimes it can happen: something that you have heard and forgotten emerges from below. I don't think it's plagiarism. Maybe an incident....but it's very similar...

Let's go ahead: I suppose that "NJ 69" means a place and a date. Effectively it's a funk instrumental with a jazz club feel. Few more than one minute but very good, then another short: "The Empty Life Of A Dope" is a jazz track with excellent rhythmic section and a good clean guitar.

"Doo You Wah To Be A Bop" is a strange acapella choir. Just consider that everything that sounds in this album is played and sung by Gramond. The choir starts from a sort of dark classical ambience then moves to swing and scat. This explains the track title. Funny.

The title track opens electronic. It's a totally different thing. Sequenced drums and basses and a 8 notes theme made by various synths. Quite hypnotic. I like it.

Organ, operatic vocals, screams...what is it? "My Dear, My Fear" is an unexpected album closer. The weird melody accmpanied by the organ is reminding of Arzachel's "Azatoth". Nice but totally unexpected.

In brief, this short album contains godd stuff, but it's not very consistent. I mean that every track is good when taken standalone, but the mixture is disconnected. Not necessarily a defect, it depends on the listener.

Anyway, as almost all the many Gramond's albums, this is downloadable for free from Jamendo. If you have 30 minutes to spare on it, they aren't wasted.