indie rock mag

"Quentin Sirjacq is not the type to stand still, as evidenced from the outset by two collective improv releases on Ambiances Magnétiques.

There is therefore more than just piano on the highly percussive Far Islands And Near Places, and from the polyrhythmic motifs and subtle noisy interferences of the Zorn-esque Aquarius (the New Yorker’s Gnostic Trio is never far off) to the marimba ballet of Wolves, somewhere between Steve Reich and Tortoise, by way of the techno beats of a nevertheless vaporous Bodies or the candid, lethargic reveries of the title track—reminiscent of the most romantic side of Angelo Badalamenti—the skeptics of the old-school neo-classical genre, whose renovators Nils Frahm and Bruno Bavota we regularly celebrate in these pages, will find plenty of side paths here to slip into their ears.

And yet, when the piano takes over—whether in the crystalline surges of Round Dance with its tropical Lubomyr Melnyk flair, the stripped-down melancholy of the aptly named Cold Lands, heir to Chopin and Satie, or the highly ambient, cinematic It’s Raining In My House, whose sentimentality evokes Joe Hisaishi—there is as little fear of repetition as of the austerity that sometimes cloaks the instrument within the modern classical scene, up to the final A Dream In A Dream, whose elegant breath, as is also the case with the marvelous Orange, easily rivals the most beautiful imaginary soundtracks of Ólafur Arnalds."

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crédits

released in august 2016

quentin sirjacq - piano, fender rhodes, percussions, synthetiseurs
arnaud lassus - marimba, vibraphone, glockenspiel

recorded and mixed by vincent taurelle at a.l.b.e.r.t studio in pantin
july 2015
mastered in tokyo by hiro iguchi
october 2015

all music composed by quentin sirjacq
art work - les fruits du dessin #6 by jerôme zonder