BLACKSTAR

1.★ or how to find a beginning for this avant-garde album released 2 days before his death? An ambient sound, electro and jazz-rock, with a dark atmosphere; a slow litany accompanied by Tony Visconti's strings and sax and piano wanderings for an improvised jam in front of the gates of Hell; a sound that also casts doubt on its musical orientation 2. 'Tis A Pity She Was A Whore begins, Donny's intrusive sax sounds like a PIL tune, yes Public Image Limited; thunderous and incisive, metronomic and irritating like the works of the great Robert Fripp; an electro house dub or almost; The vocals follow the tune and seem fleeting, struggling to stay grounded in this endless variation. 3. Lazarus, with its rhythmic foundation seemingly straight out of a Cure album, the melancholic sax returning in an undertow, David talking about death?well, yes, that was his hobbyhorse after all; a latent, atmospheric, and expectant air, and David's hooked voice surfing on this addictive, hypnotic, and heady beat from which the eternal sax roars at the end; yes, the jazzy imprint is definitely there in his testament. The bass vibrates in the outro.

4. Sue (Or In A Season Of Crime) continues her exploration with the exhausting, slightly aggressive wind instruments, striking our ears like no other; A jazzy, detuned litany that drifts in the wind, the brass instruments join in and make the hairs stand on end, bringing the track to an interwar atmosphere; disturbing and surprising 5. Girl Loves Me for David's prominent voice; the musical impulse recalls Fripp, Japan; I find snippets of XTC, PIL again, the sound of the voice slows down, a desire to live and to have a little more love? The reverberating, minimalist synth comes to jam with the sax and gets carried away 6. Dollar Days as a jazzy love song ballad, the theme of this black and white album, between the desire and the fear of leaving; David is calm and sings on the track with a chorus that is both warm and sad; a guitar solo discredits the repetitive, looped, melting vocal 7. I Can't Give Everything Away on a soft synth and its sax now well established; the catchy vocal, soft, marshmallow, without an A too many, a tune that passes, groovy and groogy by this unusual mixture, this sax seeming to connect our spirit to life here below; a piece that never ends and thus shows its proggy belonging; in short, prog oriented, not progressive Bowie before entering the musical Olympus.

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