Canada

Lead by Richard Addison, having the credits on all the compositions including the arrangements, he play the bass on all track and the programming. He produced the album with Michel St-Père, who also play the guitar on songs 1 to 4. The engeneering and the mastering is also done by Michel at his own studio Illusion III. Nine others musicians play in the CD.

The basic of the music here is Jazz-rock, then enhanced with some elements of prog, film music and rock and blues. Maybe the more strange song in this CD, 'Sleepwalking', it remind me somewhere the music of ENSEMBLE NIMBUS but in a Jazzy format, it's a very nice song this one. In 'The Muffin', the central part is also very nice, with beautiful drifting keys and a nice guitar solo mid rock/mid Jazz by Eric St-Laurent, debut and ending is usual Jazz-rock. 'Montée de Lait' with a funky bass and this time with a heavy-rock central section. 'Mood Swings', first song with violin, very dramatic, the song talk about how to deal with the Adisson's desease. 'Le Grand-Bé' is more heavy and blues-rock in the middle, the beginning is looking like a Jazzy-soundscapes, maybe corresponding to the feeling of Richard at the time he was sitting on the tomb of Chateaubriand....., that's full of strangeness. In 'Mceuet' it's the place for some psychedelic guitar, 'After All' in my opinion is the first one where I found a progressive part in the middle, another time glidding, and in between of another time usual Jazz-rock. In '10h10' same refrain starting with usual Jazz-rock, the song is enhanced in the central part by a nice electric violin solo, this song also contain a well progressive component in the middle part, another time with glidding keys behind, I think influenced by his own experiences in film music. We can see this also in the very first part of 'Controlled Freedom', a classical introduction, which change radilly to a very slow duel between the bass and the sax, I don't know how to spell this kind of Jazz, follow a solo piano by Pierre Nadeau and then and ending with film music, ambient, soundscape.

So, there is not a lot of prog here, it's an usual Jazz-rock, that's true often ponctuated with out of time, riffs interruptions and strange riffs sometime, allowing to me to compare the first song to 'ENSEMBLE NIMBUS' for an example, but in general it's not to loud over the music to call this Jazz-rock, free. As I say enhanced more with rock, heavy-rock and blues often in the middle of the songs and in between Jazz-rock intro and ending parts. The songs 'After All' and '10h10' are the ones where you will find prog. That's a very nice CD out from Unicorn Records but to be like more by fans of Jazz-rock than prog.

Denis Taillefer / Proglands  (August 2003)

<-Previous  review     Next review ->