In The Mood For Love

Description

After Le plus longtemps possible released in 2022, which earned them a "Coup de cœur" from the Académie Charles Cros as well as the title of "Group of the Year" according to the editorial teams of Jazz News and Jazz Magazine, the four musicians of Flash Pig have chosen, as the guiding thread of their new album, a story of love and imagination: In the Mood for Love, a masterpiece by director Wong Kar Wai. - - Flash Pig finds a perfect vehicle in the film's soundtrack, which, in addition to the theme of lovers and its variations, includes several boleros by Nat King Cole and traditional Chinese songs. Like in Wong Kar Wai's work, the formal constraint allows the group a modest and distanced expression of emotion. The unspoken, the fleeting touches, the nostalgia of this story without a future permeate the album. - - However, where Wong Kar Wai never relinquishes his strict aesthetic control, Flash Pig continues the work initiated on their previous albums where letting go, listening, and taking risks are fundamental. They infuse the treatment of this soundtrack — which can flirt with kitsch — with a wildness, humor, and embodiment that the film does not reveal. - - This fiery and controlled album, the fifth in the quartet's fifteen-year existence, allows us to appreciate musicians who have matured together, capable like few others of expressing complex and nuanced emotions with a jazz idiom. The dialogue with cinema opens up delightful possibilities for our imagination, further advancing this precious group for French and European jazz.