GUILLAUME PERRET & THE ELECTRIC EPIC

The French saxophonist Guillaume Perret has conceived here a fantastically strong and cohesive imaginary musical universe! Making fire of all kind of woods (electric Miles, Ethiopian jazz, Zeuhl, metal, psychedelic, space rock, free jazz and more), he succeeds in giving you real unheard combinations; his use of distortion or wah wah on the saxophone, the presence of One Shot's telluric bass player Philippe Bussonet or NHX's drummer Yoann Serra, the choice of strong and unorthodox personalities like trumpetist Mederic Collignon, plus a shovelful of other oddities, nuances, details, all this contributes to the ironing of a powerful collective sound, a true delight for creative ears! I can hardly wait for the next step ...

This truly is an epic recording and it's surprising to see one review for this amazing album. The core of this band came out of a group called NHX which was basically ONE SHOT before they came into being, but instead of Daniel Jeand'heur on drums it was Yoann Sera. So Yoann, Philippe Bussonet and guitarist Jim Grandcamp created this trio and tried different soloists as the fourth member without any success until they discovered Guillaume Perret who so impressed the band that his name is in the band's title.

Yoann Sera would play with OFFERING and Bussonet of course played for years in MAGMA as their most recent bass player until that role was filled by Jannick Top's son Jimmy in what 2020 or so. Grandcamp was one of the guitarists on "Infernal Machina" by Top. It's pretty cool that all but the drummer play electric instruments with effects. Even the drummer though adds samples. Really great to hear a sax with wah wah and distortion let alone the guitar and bass being tripped out. John Zorn is the executive producer here and oh Guillaume likes to be known as the "sound explorer". So yeah some inventive stuff here that borders on Avant much of the time. Lets go with Avant Jazz shall we.

Not an average song on here and so it's tough coming up with favourites but I really like how the album ends with those last three tracks although I have to put the opener in this class too so lets go with a top four of the seven provided here. The opener "Kakoum" starts out so cool with the guitar and sax lines creating complexity and I like the way they mesh together. It turns powerful as drums and bass kick in with sax over top. The powerful sections come and go. A couple of calms on this 8 1/2 minute opener as well. A surprising ethnic vibe 6 minutes in including the corresponding vocals. Nice! Some intensity follows including some brief extreme vocals. "Chamo" is where we get a couple of guests including a female singer who wrote her lyrics. And a cornet player who also adds his voice. Just a different animal from the rest.

"Theme Pour Le Rivage Des Morts" is the longest at over 12 1/2 minutes. Faint sounds and experimental for the first what 2 1/2 minutes as a bass line rises out of this. It kicks in heavily with sax over top. Check out the rhythm section! Even more intense before 7 minutes before letting up as we get a spacey calm around 9 minutes in. It's epic and distorted 11 1/2 minutes in for the final minute. The closer "Massacra" is a live tune recorded in Geneva, Switzerland. It builds to a heavy sound. Oh my! Guitar too and some insane laughter. The rhythm section is huge with sax over top. More guitar after 3 1/2 minutes. So good. The sax is back!

Man so much about this album just hits all the right buttons for me. I mean I'm a huge Bussonet fan but now I have to give it up for this insanely talented sax player along with Sera and Grandcamp. A must for fans of Avant and Jazz.