b r a n d o n

Pianist and composer Jérôme Langlois was one of the driving forces behind the famed (at least in Quebec) symphonic rock band Maneige in their early years. Evidently, after leaving Maneige, Langlois made his living at least partly in the realm of soundtrack music. While I would expect that such work would be somewhat mind-numbing, akin to being an architect for a cookie-cutter suburban development company, perhaps Langlois was composing particularly interesting sorts of soundtracks, because judging from Molignak, he certainly hasn't lost any creative edge since the 1970s. Which is not to say that the Maneige fan should come in expecting something sounding much like that band. No, this stuff is as akin to modern chamber music as it is to progressive rock. Many of the 18 (mostly brief) pieces that make up this album are very small-scale affairs; some are simply duets between piano and clarinet, while others add a few more timbral colors to the mix — although really, piano and clarinet, and violin as well, really do dominate the instrumental palette. The compositions are mostly low-key, somewhat melancholy, and quite accessibly melodic. There are moments where things spin just a bit out of control to keep things interesting, but for the most part Molignak is quite consonant and beautiful. About my only serious beef with this album is its overly delicate use of drums and percussion. This isn't really stuff that rocks hard enough to generally need drums, and I could have done without them, especially since where they are used, they sound almost cheesily programmed. For instance, in "Arrivée" the simple, bouncy drumming sounds like an accompaniment to some kind of hackneyed classical-music-for-rock-fans nonsense (you know, the ones where a famous classical piece is set to a Casio-generated "drumbeat"). Thankfully, this problem isn't really predominant, although at times I do feel the music in general leans dangerously close to a certain new-agey aesthetic I don't tend to like. That said, there's always just enough of an edge, and a kind of sadness, to these compositions that keeps me interested. Fans of chamber-rock or adventurous classically-oriented symphonic prog could do much worse than to check this out. And did I mention that there's a Conventum alumnus that plays on this? Standard disclaimer: ProgQuébec's Sean McFee is a review for Ground & Sky. review by Brandon Wu — 1-9-05 —