Aranis in Paris 19/06

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Le Triton (in Les Lilas a Parisian suburb) now in his tenth year has become  one of the important prog venues in Europe, with an accent on Zeuhl (homeclub of Magma) and Canterbury. In the begining of the summer the club schedules Les Tritonales a two week festival dedicated entirely to Prog (see also Harmonium's Univers Zero review) a good occasion to see classic bands like Magma, Univers Zero and Canterbury musicians (who had unfortunately sad losses these last times with the departure of Pip Pyle, Elton Dean and lately Hugh Hopper who have all played often here) but it's also the occasion to discover newer bands like Aranis.

Contrary to the attendence of the Magma and Univers Zero concerts a couple of days ago there were only about fifteen people in the audience. I spokeduring  the pause with Angeline from the admin staff who was unhappy about the missing audience, but  as Le Triton is a non benefit association the means for advertising are limited and for lesser known acts the audience is unfortunaerly sometimes quite small even so the club is still in reach of the Parisian subway.(last stop of line 11 'Mairie De Lilas') So on your next trip to Paris check out the programme!!!

With seven musicians on stage and about twice as much audience members the band seemed slightly disappoined when coming on stage, but as they got a hearty welcome this was quickly forgotten.  Le Triton works like a Jazz club in set fashion and the first set was interesting but a little stiff . The compositions coming nearly all from bass player Joris Vanvinckenroye are excellent and the band is tight and has a good ensemble play. I would describe their music  as Imaginary Folk Minimalism. P. Glass and S. Reich are obvioulsy a big influence but also eastern European folk tunes, some passages reminding Bartok's work on Roumanian and Ungarian folk tunes. Despite the enthusiasm and the good musicianship the music didn't really got off the ground during the first set apart from some solo passages, with a special mention for the energetic piano playing from Axelle Kennes the rest of the band was too reserved. Even so the acoustic au Triton is normally excellent Aranis had for my taste an unbalanced sound with too much high end and the lack of medium and low end (the double bass was far  too low in the mix) which didn't served the music.

After abeer and a chat at the bar, (Le Triton is familar venue where you can easily make contact with the musicians and fans) back to the second set...

...which  showed the band more confident, the music was edgier and rougher and the musicians getting looser. While the first set presented a quieter and dreamier athmosphere the second set was closer to the dynamics of Univers Zero and Present with stronger rhythmic accents and a "rockier" sound even so no electric instruments are present. The audience reacted positively and cheered the playfullnes! The second set saw also elaborated solo sections from all members again with a special mention for pianist Axelle Kennes

All in all a pleasant concert and I am curious to see Aranis in september on a bigger stage in Carmeaux during the RIO festival.

Edited by Alucard - June 20 2009 at 05:19