L'HOMME VOILIER

Another lost gem

Last week when I received the ONIRIS suggestion, started to search for their only album "L'Homme Voilier", suddenly remembered that a friend had the LP and went to his house and exchanged it for an old copy of "Grease" that my sister left at home when she moved, but only yesterday could find a cartridge for my turntable and have been listing it repeatedly.

To be honest, i'm not a fan of French Theatric Symphonic, a style that I find over-elaborate and too operatic for my taste, but the album was a surprise, because despite the clear influences of ATOLL and ANGE, their sound is much more melodic and pleasant.

"L'Homme Voilier" is opened by the 17 minutes epic "Schizologues", a song that has everything a Proghead loves, starting with an introduction that reminds me of MAGMA and an intelligent track that combines soft music with radical changes and great vocals, all I can say it's that this a delightful piece of music.

The second track "L'Homme Voilier" begins as a soft ballad with excellent piano passages, but around the first minute, everything becomes flamboyant and extremely theatric with dialogues that I'm unable to understand and radical changes with excellent guitar and keyboards work, despite the complexity loved the song.

"Enferologues" is the classic example of why I don't like French Symphonic too much, they spend all the track with dialogues and weird sounds, luckily only lasts 55 seconds, so doesn't affect too much my opinion of the album.

"L'Homme Voilier" is closed by "Le Rêve Et Le Quotidien", another extremely theatric song full of funny voices and weird screams, but the music is so good, that I simply don't focus too much in my least favorite aspects of this piece, the fusion of Jazz and Symphonic is outstanding.

"L'Homme Voilier" is quite short, but I always choose quality of quantity, and what I heard on this album is extremely good (except "Enferologues"), not masterpiece, but far above average, so I'll go with 4 stars.

Oniris is a new addition to our well stocked archive of theatrical French symph prog bands. And a great addition too, it is.

Released back in 1978, this band follows in the footsteps of Mona Lisa, Atoll and Ange. Just to mention a few of the great French bands. Where Oniris and this album is a bit special and most definate is a stand out album is their fusion of jazz into their folk rock inspired theatrical symphonic prog. The result is a spicy, heady dish I would not had objected to if it was delivered as a piece of food. I would probably have liked it more served up as food than as music.

The vocals are great as always when it comes to French symphonic prog bands. It seems like vocals is far more important in France than over in the old blighty and everywhere else. I have to say; to the credit of the French bands. The vocals is well over the top theatrical too. Which is very funny in fact. I don't understand French so the lyrics passes me by. But the French men is passionate, the local female population has assured me. The instruments is pretty much down the jazz alley with a rampant bass and drums. The keyboards and guitars barely keeps the music at a suitable symphonic prog level..... barely. In short, this album is one of a kind.

The quality is very good to great throughout. I am slowly warming towards this album, more and more. It is most certainly an original album from a band who sadly only released this album. A weak quadruple stars is rewarded. And yes; this album is a gem in our genre.

4 stars

ONIRIS were a band from France who released this one album back in 1979. There are plenty of theatrical vocals, atmosphere and adventure. This is such an interesting listen and they have given a lot of attention to detail. The album I thought of most while listening to this was Emmanuel Booz's 1974 release. We do get some welcomed female vocals at times and she is fantastic.

"Schizologues" opens with dark atmosphere as piano and bass join in. It's building. Theatrical vocals 2 minutes in. It changes and becomes jazzy before 4 minutes with electric piano and guitar. Another calm with atmosphere follows then the vocals are back. Theatrical spoken words after 6 1/2 minutes then it's jazzy again. It's catchy but laid back after 8 minutes. Female vocals help out as well. A brief Zeuhl vibe after 10 minutes is cool. It's jazzy again. Some nice guitar after 14 1/2 minutes then atmosphere ends it. What a great side long suite that is.

"L'homme Voilier" opens with piano melodies as fragile vocals join in. Not a fan of this but thankfully it changes and turns experimental but not for long as we get more mellow stuff. It's fuller then we get an atmospheric calm before 4 minutes. Some crazy theatrics late. "Enferologues" is a short psychedelic conversation. "Le Reve Et Le Quotidien" opens with drums as vocals and a fuller sound follows. The female vocals here are sound amazing. Insane is maybe the word. Atmosphere and whispering 3 minutes in then it picks up again. Laughter before 5 minutes and a guitar solo 6 1/2 minutes in. The intensity is rising 8 1/2 minutes in with the vocals leading. Amazing ! A calm ends it as it as the album ends as it began.

A very solid 4 stars.