GUILLAUME PERRET & THE ELECTRIC EPIC

Guillaume Perret's debut album is really important event on French prog fusion scene. Professional sax player with strong jazz background, he collaborates on this album with Magma's veteran bassist Philippe Bussonnet. Other collaborator guitarist Jim Grandcamp played with Eric Serra and Jannick Top between others.

Music there on this album is not zeuhl, but very energetic and quite dark and heavy jazz fusion, but with pure jazz rock roots. Distorted bass in combination with fast and very complex drums builds quite zeulish, dark atmosphere, and guitar adds tension and nerve in very rocking manner. At the same time, sax is more free-jazzy, even avant sounding in moments.

There are no mellow tunes (happily) and relaxed romantic moments (I am so happy!) on this album at all. Mid- to fast tempo instrumentals, very precisely played, but far not too much polished, with tension and nerves, sharp sounds and complex improvs.Not very usual sound for French fusion, and possibly even more attractive because of that!

This is some really good modern fusion, although I admit I haven't heard a lot of post-70s fusion. This features bassist Philippe Bussonet who played with Magma. There is a little bit of a Zeuhl influence here, and not just because of the bass. The electric sax work of Guillaume Perret is great. Some of the songs here were recorded in concert judging by the crowd applause.

"Massacra" starts with crowd noises, but this is not a live song. The crowd is sampled from some rally or something. There are some good samples and effects which add to the song. At first this song sounds more metal than fusion. "Circe" builds up in the last half with some great Zeuhl-like scat singing. "Brutalum Voluptuous" is more of a traditional jazz song. Not very fusion-y but still good. I like the echoed sax here. "Louop" has a cool part with just sax and drums. The electric guitar sounds more like an electric piano in this song. Nifty electronic sounds near the end. The album ends with the shortest song, "Troglodyte Polyglotte Anthropomorphique". A jazz-funk-ish workout. The song fades out just as a guitar solo starts; I would have liked to hear the rest.

This is definately a grower, I like it the more I hear it. The musicianship is tight and the sound good. These guys show a lot of promise. I can see G.P. & E.E. making a 100% studio album better than this. I would give this a 3.5 but can't bring myself to give it 4 stars. My ratings are fairly conservative, so a 3 star rating from me means it's a good album and should be heard; just not something you should go out your way to have in your collection. Recommended to fans of modern fusion.

Shimmers of hope for the future of French music

Before I leave France behind for the yellow brown soil of Italy, I suddenly realize that I haven't made any mention of the modern French music scene. So as a result of this, I think it fair to talk a little of what I personally consider to be one of the most shining beacons of the current scene - as well as finishing off the French trek of my world-wide road trip with my all-time fave French prog album(No I'm not telling yet, I have bunnies in the oven).

Guillaume Perret & The Electric Epic is one of the most interesting names who's merged the wild and frivolous nature of the early fusion scene with modern avant shadings as well as a big scoop of Zeuhl teutonics. With raw hard hitting guitar riffs, screaming saxophone licks and double pedal rumbles coming from underneath the soles of drummer extraordinaire Yoann Serra's feet, you too sense a familiarity about the hard edges of the music - the big swooping gulps of metallic counter-pointing.

As many probably will have picked up by now, it is indeed King Crimson and especially the latter day projects with their huge heavy rocking clashes, that I am referring to here. Of course the French aren't new to picking up the sweet nectar of Monsieur Fripp - as first with Richard Pinhas and later on with the likes of the Maurin brothers' bands NIL, Thork and Syrinx as well as Nebelnest and One Shot, but with Perret the focus is mainly kept on the surreal and quite yearning qualities of the saxophone. On this selftitled debut this rather charming facet to the music starts out in the presence of industrial uncouth guitar riffs, that wouldn't feel out of place on a Neurosis album. Together with the big steel boots drumming, it's not a far stretch to the dangerous black pounce of Mastelotto and Levin.

Poured on top of these crêpes - the cockadoodledoo tweets of main man Perret fly like a beat dream of Canterbury, colours and Mel Collins. This makes the music develop a softness and a wonderful opposition to the harshness of the kaleidoscopic metal fusion preceding it. With the aforementioned rumbling onslaught mostly leading things on, it is a most welcome change now and again to experience wisps of velvety sound slurping up against the metal bucket.

Lastly I really dig how the bass is so slappy, flappy and fascinated with the thumbing ways of Zeuhl. Mixed up with the clever kids from down the block - it bobs its way through the beatnik Canterbury fellas and the modern avant crowd with its black clothes and skeleton tattoos.

I hope for great things in the future - music will never stop, and especially the bands who find new ways of throwing old and antiquated spot lights on the past entice me - pull me in in a manner that has me looking forward to all the coming peacock coloured branchings of a style of music, that not only changed paths several times on its way, but literally made the people making it question the possibilities of patterned sound.