TURZI

"Coucou"is a good example of my description as we get high pitched female vocal melodies along with bass and a spacey atmosphere. "Cygne" again features female vocal melodies but the music this time is more epic sounding. A calm before 1 1/2 minutes as we get keys, a beat and sampled processed spoken words. it then kicks back into that opening theme. "Corbeau" is kind of cool with that urgent rhythm and those short repetitive vocal melodies that come and go repeatedly. "Colombe" has a more relaxed sound with that spacey mood. A trumpet comes in briefly around 1 1/2 minutes followed by a silent calm before female vocal melodies take over. I'm not a fan of those higher pitched sounds.

"Cormoran" is better with that grungy bass and more determined drum work. Vocal melodies 2 minutes in then it calms right down a minute later before it all kicks back in. The drums on "Condor" sounds like a drum machine as they often do on this album. It turns more powerful and then catchy 2 minutes in. It turns really spacey 4 1/2 minutes in as the beat stops. "Chouetto" has all these light sounds and it's catchy. Hey we get some male vocals for a change. The last two tracks are my favourites. "Cardinal" has these fast paced beats and sounds as male vocals join in. I like how powerful it is after 2 minutes when the vocals stop. Some great stuff here. The vocals are back and check out the guitar that follows. "Coq" has a shimmering sound to start then the drums come to the fore in a fast paced manner. Lots of light intricate sounds here as well.

While I can appreciate why this album is getting lots of praise, it's just not doing a lot for me and my tastes.

The band name derives from mastermind Romain Turzi (guitar), who started as a solo performer with the approach to work out some sort of avantgarde output. After one self-produced album he decided to form a real band and in the meanwhile they are an insider's tip when it comes to experimental music. And so much the more this counts for their live performances. TURZI are standing for an odd symbiosis of psychedelic/space, synthy-pop and electronically coloured krautrock which is quite exceptional I would say.

On 'A' TURZI open an unique mixed bag of Kraftwerk adapted robotic electronics, vocoder modified and whispering voices, spacey echoed guitars, diversified keyboards and hypnotic rhythms which is impressing. Can't pick up a special track here really - this is an album which surely should be checked in its entirety. As for the context they bring up typical French themes concerning religion (Jesus and Allah - coupled with a pun referring to the politically controversial actor Alain Delon) as well as war themes with the song Afghanistan which is a rather catchy exemplar.

Well ... trying to define some boundaries for a summary ... for example if you like Can and the early Pink Floyd in the same way and imagine to hear them performing as a unity - check this! I would even count 'A' among the rare neo-krautrock albums you are able to find nowadays - which means not simply rehashing the 1960/70's, but so much the more picking up the spirit in order to work out something new in some way. Highly recommended - 4.5 stars!