THE SWEET LITTLE MOTHER FUCKIN' SHOW (2 vinyls)

Description

“FANTAZIO IS AN EDOUARD BAER WHO’S DONE FIFTEEN YEARS IN THE SLAMMER.”How to describe Fantazio? Where to begin? There’s the gravel-voiced punk Fantazio, the slightly dodgy Italian crooner Fantazio, the smooth-voiced Fantazio, the semi-yoghurt-English rock-and-roller Fantazio (no one is as good at semi-yoghurt as he is), the falsetto-voiced Fantazio, the bass-voiced Fantazio, the vociferous and whispering Fantazio, the agitated and sentimental Fantazio…“What’s great about this album is that it features most of these facets, from the decadent Italian crooner of ‘Learn’ to the moving singer of ‘La fin des haricots’ who drops all his masks—at least a dozen of them anyway (‘La fin des haricots c’est mon début à moi’ - The end of the beans is my beginning).For me, coming from the world of jazz, and regularly penning little notes in various magazines dedicated to this folk music, Fantazio is a jazzman. Of the free-jazz persuasion. He scrapes his bass as if he wants to rip its guts out, and sets the asphalt ablaze with his hairpin turns, transitioning from punk to rocker or Italian crooner. I listen to it like a solo. I listen to him like a guy who’d be soloing with all the instruments at his disposal.Fantazio is a great improviser. You have to listen to him live, take all the risks, stretch a rope over his inner labyrinths and advance across it, eyes empty because they are turned towards his inner landscapes. I once wrote that Fantazio was an Edouard Baer who’d done fifteen years in the slammer. I am well aware of the pathetic nature of quoting oneself, but I can’t find a better way to put it. He’s a virtuoso improviser but without a tuxedo, a virtuoso who doesn't camouflage himself in his virtuosity but always seeks to push his limits to go beyond, elsewhere, further. You really have to listen to it.”JF Mondot“Musician, singer, extraordinary street performer. For over ten years, he has dragged his double bass from squats to bars, from happenings to improbable wanderings, for singular and captivating sound compositions.”