L'Oumigmag

You’re not supposed to judge a book by its cover — but what about a record? In the case of "Ce qui tourne dans l’air", doing so might take you surprisingly close to what the music actually sounds like. The title — which could be rendered as "what swirls in the air" — already hints at a kind of suspension, a perceptual drift. And the listening experience confirms it: an ecstatic detachment from time, where a moment can stretch into an hour, and minutes can contract into a single breath. It’s a fully immersive fusion, where the natural, the artificial, the magical, and the transcendent merge in an equilibrium that’s both subtle and overwhelming. Echoes from deep-rooted traditions are magnified through processes only contemporary technology can shape with such delicacy.

Reworking elements from the French-speaking Québecois folk repertoire, the Canadian ensemble led by guitarist and sound manipulator Sébastien Sauvageau reaches into contemporary classical, nu jazz, and ambient electronic territory. Around him, a five-piece lineup that doesn’t merely support but co-constructs the music through collective improvisation: Dâvi Simard (fiddle and foot percussion), Alex Dodier (saxophone, bass clarinet, synths), Stéphane Diamantakiou (double bass, electric bass, synth bass), and Sam Joly (drums and electronics).
The fact that it’s being released on Ronin Rhythm Records — the label founded by Nik Bärtsch, generally focused on Swiss artists orbiting his minimalist jazz ethos — is notable in itself. And it suggests a deep affinity between Bärtsch’s spiritual formalism and the fluid geometries of the Montreal-based group, who list him among their influences, along with British acts like Portico and The Gloaming.

After the brief intro "˚∆ ~ Terre ~ Horizon", the title track opens the record like a circular ritual: minimalism, understated groove, and spoken word passages (delivered by guest vocalist Erika Angell) evoke — almost certainly by chance — the sadly overlooked Bolzano-based group Croma. The piece is based on "Le Capitaine", a traditional song from the Baie Sainte-Catherine at the mouth of the Saguenay River, but the reference is far from literal: like river waters reaching the sea, the source dissolves into the creative process, leaving only a submerged current behind. The hybrid of tradition, minimalist repetition, and chamber-like textures recalls the instrumental hypnosis of Breton trio Fleuves or the “English instrumental trance” described by Guardian critic Robin Denselow in 2018, a label he applied to acts like Spiro and Leveret.
Further into the album, "Ce qui s’écoule" rides on a 7/8 ostinato set against a Reich-like pulse, steady and muffled like a ticking mechanism buried under the sand. The double bass slides across fractional pitches, while synths drip crystalline, melancholic tones — never sentimental, always exacting. The sensation is of a natural world that overwhelms not through force but by sheer presence: sunlit mist rising in a forest, the shimmer of dew, a single leaf reflected on water. Moments easily missed — yet once noticed, they dissolve boundaries and quietly saturate the listener. This kind of perceptual tension runs through the whole album, evoking the atmospheric weight of Hidden Orchestra — not so much in style, but in emotional resonance.

Built on a composition by American fiddler Lisa Ornstein ("Les Marionnettes"), "Ce qui constelle" plays with a 5:4 polyrhythm that seems to follow its own private clock. Violin and clarinet swirl, graze, and vanish in a light-footed dance that feels like it could last forever — or no time at all. In truth, it’s just under ten minutes, but it might just as well be more or less: here, time is stripped of linearity altogether.
"Ce qui persiste" begins with echoing textures, sonic ricochets and stereo-spread dialogue that wouldn’t be out of place on a Peter Gabriel record — "IV", "Passion", "Us". The track unfolds through stretches and compressions, and it’s easy to imagine fans of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Talk Talk, or weather-sensitive post-rock settling into its mood. But while it brushes against that territory, it gradually spirals into something more ecstatic — a slow swirl where, thanks to jazzy drumming and the low register of the bass clarinet, an otherwise unthinkable folktronic version of "Bitches Brew" takes form. No explosions, no catharsis: just a molten current that regenerates itself over and over.

Compared to their previous double album "Habitant" (2019), broad and ambitious in scope, "Ce qui tourne dans l’air" feels more compact — and in some ways, more integrated. Folk, jazz, electronics, and modern classical don’t rotate in and out; they fuse. No single element dominates — what emerges is not a balance, but an alchemy. A work that doesn’t seek a fixed identity, because transformation is its very essence.
A murmur of otherworldly voices opens and fades through the final track, "Ce qui ne veut pas s’éteindre" — “what refuses to go out”. A perfect conclusion to an album that, in just forty-three minutes, captures a fragment of eternity.

(English version created with AI-assisted translation)

15/05/2025