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CD Feature/ Maninkari: "Le Diable avec ses Chevaux"

  Tobias

There has been an interesting tendency in the Conspiracy roster over the last few releases to hold some of the virtues of the 70s in high esteem: Preferring improvisation above preconceived organisation, searching for new structures instead of refining old ones and generally considering everything possible. „Le Diable Avec ses Chevaux“ turns this policy into a piece of art.

Already its gargantuan forms are testimony of unrestrained thinking and a wide open mind: A double -album by an enigmatic duo filled with two and a half hours of music, performed by instrumentalists who combine modern technology, traditional instruments, avantgarde-violin and tribal drumming, while sampling, mixing, pounding and fever-dreaming their way through tracks between a few minutes and over quarter of an hour's length, touching the realms of Rock, World Music, Dark Ambient, Jazz, Electroacoustic Composition and total madness.

So yes, to get your facts straight, this is an ambitious album. In fact, it is easily one of the most ambitious albums of the past few months. When Glass'ean string layers meet nervously rustling drone statics or when freetonal melodies are stirred inside a burning, metallic firepot, the result is one of simultaneous astonishment, disbelief and headache.

Slowly, the mysterious, yet catchy Satoor-melodies and Cymbalom-motives of the opening tracks make way for a more textural approach, which sees the album sink down into a calm sea of blackness and almost complete stasis, resurfacing for air at carefully timed intervals.

I therefore tend to disagree with those who have called this album epic and cinematic. Instead, its reduced instrumentation, converging colours and asthmatic ambiances lend it a hermetically closed and almost immobile air of gradual suffocation. When a Piano appears to finally come to the rescue towards the end of disc one, its uneasy clusters are quickly broken apart by maniacally plucked pizzicato strings.

And yet, the brothers Frederic and Olivier Charlot, whose vision seems to have come full circle with „Le Diable Avec ses Chevaux“ after their more diversified efforts in previous projects and incarnations, have managed to avoid scaring the listener off, but to rather keep him glued to his seat, taking in each second like an alcoholic being spoon-fed his daily ration of Vodka.

The reason for this astounding feat can be found in the fact that their arrangements are never crammed with tracks like a spiderwebbed attic filled with old suitcases and dusty drawers. Instead, the intense drawings populating the canvas of „Le Diable avec ses Chevaux“ are being drawn by the band and their listeners alike. Which means that it can both be listened to as a stimulating background music with friends as well as consumed alone in those lonely moments, when red wine and a bittersweet depression wake the appetite for something completely out of the ordinary.

Nonetheless, it remains a hazardous venture, both creatively and commercially. The fact that Conspiracy Records have not only dared to take this venture on, but even made it one of their top priorities tells us a lot about their dedication to music, regardless of its implications in a market economy. It is also another sign that the spirit of the 70s is blowing through their office like a fresh breeze.

By Tobias Fischer

Homepage: Maninkari at MySpace
Homepage: Conspiracy Records