Vallon

Freebeat Music Records presents The Forest Chill Lounge (Deep Moods Music with Smooth Ambient & Chillout Tunes). Jean Mare, Artenovum, Richard Bonnee, Buddhatronic, The Space Ensemble Project and more.

The Inward Song is hardly the quiet, introverted recital of music that might be expected, given the album's title. While alto saxophonist Christian Weidner does throw in a few pieces that fit nicely under this banner, the music on this CD also demonstrates a great deal of range. A case in point is the way the album begins. "St. Paul" starts off with Weidner and pianist Colin Vallon delivering angular unison lines on a blank canvas. Bassist Henning Sieverts and drummer Samuel Rohrer enter with a seemingly un-metered, wavy undercurrent of sound. The intensity just builds from there and reaches fever pitch, with Weidner exuding a John Coltrane-style spiritualism and intensity in his delivery.

The most obscure Magma offshoot ever is also the most underrated one…

Les Kapsber’girls, an ensemble of four singers and instrumentalists directed by the lutenist Albane Imbs, has already released its debut album (Che fai tù?, released on Muso) which received several awards. The group now joins Alpha for several recordings, starting with Vous avez dit Brunettes? – ‘brunettes’ being the name of the chansons that lovers crooned in each others’ ears by the Bassin d’Apollon or among the groves of the Petit Trianon at Versailles Palace, undeniably light in character yet powerfully authentic. Seventeenth-century France was home to a host of artists whose talent served the nobility and the bourgeoisie, who were extremely partial to these airs. Performing them as vocal solos or duets with lute or viol, Les Kapsber’girls bring back to life, more than three centuries later, these works published by Ballard & Fils, printers to the Sun King, alongside such little-known composers as Julie Pinel and Giuseppe Saggione.

The Inward Song is hardly the quiet, introverted recital of music that might be expected, given the album's title. While alto saxophonist Christian Weidner does throw in a few pieces that fit nicely under this banner, the music on this CD also demonstrates a great deal of range. A case in point is the way the album begins. "St. Paul" starts off with Weidner and pianist Colin Vallon delivering angular unison lines on a blank canvas. Bassist Henning Sieverts and drummer Samuel Rohrer enter with a seemingly un-metered, wavy undercurrent of sound. The intensity just builds from there and reaches fever pitch, with Weidner exuding a John Coltrane-style spiritualism and intensity in his delivery.

On Dallёndyshe (“The Swallow”), her second ECM album, Elina Duni sings songs of love and exile. The troubled history of the Balkan regions has inspired many such songs and the pieces here, primarily from Albanian traditional sources, are interpreted with intensity and insight by Elina and her band. The Tirana-born and Swiss-raised singer has become an exceptional musical storyteller embodying the songs’ narratives, in a way that transcends genre definitions and language limitations.