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Cesar Inca Special Collaborator Honorary Collaborator
Mostly known as the Quebecois Gentle Giant, Et Cetera certainly manages to make out
the best of their major influences and come up with something refreshing and creative
that they can properly call their own. Sure these guys were totally interested in
delicate dissonances and intricate polyphony, and their compositions contain lots of
classical and jazzy elements in a prog rock context, but all in all there is a certain
cadence in their music, built on an eerie delicateness, that stands as an original EC
factor: I don't know quite how to explain it intelligently, but I feel it that way. The male-
female vocal dialogues and counterpoints are simply delicious, and so are the interplays
built by the lead guitarist and the two keyboardists. Dragon handles craftily the
complex rhythm patterns with his solid, precise drumming, while bassist Pigeon combine
his partnership with Dragon and his inputs for the melodic stuff contributed by his other
fellow members. The first two tracks overtly show the listener what the band's artistic
ideology is all about, and so do 'Newton Avait Raison' and the exquisite
closure 'Tandem'. The usual progressive pretentiousness is there, but it is not taken to
an excessively pompous level: delicateness seems to be the main rule of Et Cetera's
game. 'Entre Chien et Loup' has a beautiful pastoral intro that soon gives way to one of
the jazziest motifs in the albums; things go on softly and fluidly until the intro is reprised
for the conclusion part. 'L'Age Dort' is the most bizarre piece in the album: synth layers
and guitar arpeggios spread under the ticking of a vibraphone and a piano, with a
floating cello providing touches of solemnity, and some soft percussives cutting the air
of mystic stillness in order to introduce a Renaissance-inspired motif somewhere in the
middle. The catchiest stuff is contained in the energetic instrumental 'Apostrophe',
which also comprises some of Marchand's best soloing. What a great album! - so weird,
so inscrutable, and so fabulous, that it can only be rated as any other prog excellent work: 4 - 4 1/2 stars.
Cesar Inca |4/5 |
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