C'ÉTAIENT DE TRÈS GRANDS VENTS

3.5 stars really!!!

This album is the proof that Musea record was an adventurous label right from the start, not just re-issuing 70's albums or releasing early 90's French neo-prog, but to have taken a chance on such an incredibly dark and experimental album is quite a feat in itself.

This is probably one of the most slowly moving album included in the archives (a sort of Univers Zero meets Henry Cow or Art Zoyd) , but it has a sort of solemnity that makes it unique in its genre. The music is never truly dissonant, never truly abstract, and never really "concrete" and that is really its strengths as this unlikely quintet (actually two drummers were used in this album) is using a trombone as one of its lead instrument if not the only one. Sounds intriguing? Even after a few listens, the album still holds a mystery and a sort of fascination that makes you hang on to the end even if this kind of music is not your cup of tea. Actually, to the end is maybe is one too far, as everything that I told you about this album holds for all tracks until the last one when this one actually breaks all the rules set for the previous tracks. This last track is called (in English) It Was Very Big Winds Indeed, and it might give you an idea of what a hurricane might sound like if you were stuck in the middle of it , with almost every stage represented even with the calm of the eye of the storm passing over your head in the quieter moments of the tracks. The rest of it is pure mayhem.

Not the easiest album, but if ever your nosy and daft neighbour wants to invade your living room trying to get acquainted better, you might want to give him a listen at "your favourite album" (this one) , and the man will surely get the urge to mow his lawn for the second time today. Mission accomplished , this album is an excellent pest-repeller and should be always be kept next to the fly-tox. Accessorily it might also fit in your RIO collection if the mood sets you for this kind of music ;-)

The first question I asked myself when listening to this album was "does C'Étaient De Très Grands Vents possess "shubbage"? Does it take you to that dark and eerie realm where malevolent trombones batter you with their slides, and concepts like 'sunshine' and 'puppies' seem insane and from another dimension? The answer was 'yes'. This album has shubbage. I was suitably shubbed. Does that make this creation an automatic personal favorite, considering that their previous album is beyond incredible and the very essence of shubbage in which all other albums possessing some form of shubbage are measured against? Not really.

The creepy dissonance remains intact. The vibe is oppressive, lonely and dreary. This time, though, the structure is often lacking, causing the tunes to spread thin like a cloud. Without a base structure, some of these pieces sound like the band mistakenly recorded themselves tuning their instruments and then stopped recording just before playing the actual song. Atmospheric but meandering.

That's not always the case. "D'un Seul Et Meme Souffle" has a melodic pattern, and it's amazingly dark. Music to conjure nightmares. Also, "Promethee" has signature vocals from their previous album to reel in the track to a cohesive tightness. As an entire opus though, it's quite difficult to listen to this album after a period of time...there's a lot of quiet moments that seem to drag on with no theme except possibly wandering a wasteland at night. As background music for a haunted house amusement ride, it has more than enough shubbage to be the most memorable aspect, disturbing adults while their kids look at themselves through warped mirrors. As a recommendation, it's good, but not the first place to start with this band. That would be Les Morts Vont Vite, which is shubtastic.

After the excellent debut Shub Niggurath are back with a work even more dark and evily than the previous one. It's ambient music, slowly progressing, with noisy accents.

"Glaciations" takes five minutes of ambient sounds similar to the darkest parts of Vangelis Heaven and Hell before becoming noisy and chaotic, with strings crying like somebody is killing them over a frenetic drum. When the drums stop we are in a realm of deadly bells with strings, guitar and trombone slowly dying. From the track title I think the music represents the extintion. And it does it very well.

"Ocean" is more grotesque. The guitar plays a major chord on which the other instruments build what apparently is chaos but is I think perfectly planned. The trombone is the lead instrument and the guitar crescendo seems to announce an emerging Cthulhu from the abyss. Effectively after a short pause the second part of the track is heavily and evily chaotic. A sonic tsunami. Like a tsunami, when the chaos is gone what remains is desolation, for the last 20 seconds of the track.

"Promethee " (or Prometeus) has lyrics. It's incredible how Sylvette Claudet sings with her soprano voice just a quarter of tone out of tune in order to increase the weirdness of the track. The impression is like a follow-up of the dark hymn to Yog-Sototh on their first album, but this time more than a hymn is an elegy.

"D'un Seul Et Meme Souffle" (A single identical breathe) is again very cemeterial. One has to be in the right mood for this music, but this time the link to classical music is more evident. Even with fulfilled of darkness I hear a bit of Stravinskij. It's classical contemporary more than Zeuhl. The album's highlight. "La Nef De Fous" (The Ship Of Fools) is a chaotic crescendo over a heavily distorted bass, like in death metal. Differently from the other tracks this has a jazz mood with a touch of psychedelia. The chaos of this track is not too different from the most acid Floyd.

"Contrincante" start with trombone and bass. A bit of relax after all the chaos, but the sounds are sinister and one can expect everything. Some bass passages appear to be melodic, surely a mistake of the bassist...the guitar joins and now we have three instruments apparently going on their own, but this is jazz, I can't tell what chord they play, but they are playing on the same chords.

The title track closes the album with the longest piece. It starts with percussions and noises just enhanced by trombone and bass. After a couple of minutes Edward Perraud shows what he can do with drums: a jazz base on which the other instrumentists put their dark effort. The track takes about 6 minutes to become more chaotic, thanks to the distorted bass, but it's the drums which lead it until the end, with the guitar crying pain on the high pitches. The last minutes are a return to the ambient of the first track.

A step back respect to the debut but still a good album for who likes spending some time in the hell.