FANTOMES (vinyl)

Description

'Fantômes' is about what connects us. What is the mechanics of the void surrounding the living? How do we decide to fill it, what is our relationship with it, individually or collectively? Does this void divide us or, on the contrary, unite us? It's all a matter of choice, of sharing. Music is invisible; the flute is merely a breath that resonates. 'Fantômes' offers 14 stories to save this world. Jî Drû, a flautist of character, the spirited bandleader for Tribe From The Ashes, Push Up! and Jî Mob, producer and arranger, and an inspired sideman, today releases his second album under his own name, a refined, expressive and dreamlike work: 'FANTÔMES'. "Music is invisible; the flute is merely a breath that resonates. I pondered our relationship with what we don't see, and more specifically with Ghosts, within the logic of a musical dream. In recent years, everything has collapsed: our intellectual and societal benchmarks, our spaces for sharing and meeting have been completely overturned and sometimes even disappeared; our bearings are displaced or erased. Ghosts then remind the living, or rather, the living recall the Ghosts. We can thus draw many parallels with music, and more broadly, with creation that uses invisible references to guide the listener, to tell stories (sounds, scales, textures, structure, nuances...). All of this, of course, if one believes in 'Ghosts'... because 'Ghosts', like the sound of the flute, do not exist, or else they serve only to poetically inhabit this world." Jî Drû's 'Fantômes' shines through its cohesion, its polished and meticulous production, as well as the quality of its cast. It is a major album, a jazz manifesto infused with blues, classical music, and repetitive, tribal, or electronic music. Pierre-François Blanchard's hypnotic Rhodes, Sandra Nkaké's captivating textures and voices, Mathieu Penot's inventive rhythms, Mike Ladd's poetic appearance, and the beautiful string arrangements accompany Jî Drû's flute volutes and vocals. Each track captures the essence of a moment, and together they create a timeless atmosphere where acoustic and wood rub shoulders with electric sounds. Jî Drû creates a dreamlike world, made of little ghost stories, carving a niche somewhere between Portico Quartet, Cinematic Orchestra and Mélanie de Biasio, that of a modern and refined jazz that weaves stories that make us vibrate. An essential and captivating album, full of poetry and revolt, a great musical, mystical, dreamlike, tribal and organic journey, for a quartet that we won't stop talking about.