PRELUDE Á L'AGONIE D'UN FAUVE

Sébastien Gramond's orchestral material done right, to an extent.

As I have often believed, some of French multi-instrumentalist Sébastien Gramond's greatest work with compositions has been in his neoclassical music. Although he has never had the opportunity to work with a live orchestra, all of the music is still presented through the use of a computer program, and while this does tend to make the music less enjoyable to listen to, it shows the remarkable promise and talent he has when it comes to writing music. With this album, Sébastien Gramond manages to polish up some of the programming to give a fairly better delivery of the music, and coupled with some more rock-based tracks, 'Prelude' is a good album to see Gramond's neoclassical work in action.

Things here range from dark, to light, to complex and simple. After all, Sébastien Gramond has always been an artist of great diversity. Although the focus here is certainly on classical music, as the album treads on, things begin to take more of a funk-electronic perspective, which works out to be an intriguing, if not surprising contrast to the first part of the album. In terms of Sébastien Gramond's discography up to the point 'Prelude' was released, this album is fairly professional in terms of the way it's done. Although it is still clear that the orchestration is fake and that the electronic arrangements are cheaply done, Sébastien Gramond manages to put what he has to good use,

A very weird and surprisingly diverse album, but the way the album flows makes 'Prelude' feel like more than a haphazard collection of tracks. Certainly, there is still the impression that this is not a professionally recorded release and that parts of the writing feel rushed, but the album comes quite close to being one of the great Gramond albums I have heard.