MY OLD ROOTS

Hungarian-born French sax player's compilation,taken from two early albums mostly ( 3 songs come from his debut "Delire", 3 more - from "Le Diable Angelique", and the last song "Beszegletes" isn't presented on any of his albums as much as I know).

Seffer's name is mostly associated with him playing sax (and other instruments) on early Magma album as well as many Zao releases. He is really great musician,very capable- in different genres.

This collection could be divided to two parts - his compositions from début album are mostly sax-led jazz fusion,free jazz,or in some cases zeuhl. Compositions,taken from second album, mentioned above, are strongly influenced by Hungarian folk and contemporary classical music,even if still have fusion/jazz elements as well.

Diversity of genres are really wide, and songs are mostly great. It's a bit strange, but zeuhl is far not dominated music here. Seffer's studio albums are quite obscure, so I believe such CD compilation release is great way to present his music for wider listener. Not easy listening,but this album could attract many newcomers to his music,especially from fans of chamber rock, free jazz and avant prog.

My rating is 3,5, rounded to 4.

3.5 stars. Another compilation album from Seffer that features music handpicked from 2 of his studio albums. In this case it's "Chromophonie 1" and "Delire" and the closing number was previously unreleased and recorded in 2005 with his Hungarian friend Lajos Horvath who is nothing short of incredible on the violin. We get ZAO drummer Jean-My Truong on a couple of tracks but he really is not a factor here being more in the background as strings, sax and piano lead the way here. No bass either is credited. The Margand String Quartet is here on several songs.

I actually quite enjoyed this but found it a little one dimensional surprisingly given it's a compilation record. The toughest song to appreciate is "Delire" at over 13 minutes being so repetitive with the sax, strings and piano. This one is not easy to digest at all. We get Zoltan Fekete adding guitar to one track and at that just to open the song but I'm not into his style. "Os-Gyoker" is a haunting piece that could have fit on his "Ghilgoul" record. Horvath adds violin on this one as Seffer offers up creepy piano lines at times. No Zeuhl on this one, more of a Classical bent to the music here.