AMAURY CAMBUZAT - The Sorcerer

2010 was a demanding year for Amaury Cambuzat: not only did it bring the new work from his long-running band Ulan Bator, but the man himself also embarked on an unusual project, namely scoring a 1931 film, specifically "Tabù" by the great German director Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau. It would certainly be more fitting, then, to listen to these thirteen tracks while watching the film itself, but the beauty of this work lies in its ability to offer ideas interesting enough to stand on their own, without visual support.

Most of the tracks are marked by brevity and a steady pace. The first of these two traits has the advantage of keeping the work as a whole from ever becoming cloying, while the second still proves a sound choice, since the ideas on offer are so sharply focused that it's a pleasure to follow them. When individual tracks run longer, the composer shows a knack for holding onto a core theme while dressing it up with more dynamic arrangements, so that there's always something to keep the listener engaged without the track ever feeling disjointed in its individual elements. In a couple of the shorter tracks we do find development that breaks free of any set pattern, yet even here the piece never loses its overall coherence.

Naturally, instrumental variety plays a decisive role in the success of the work. Electric elements, digital elements, and rhythmic elements alike are deployed in the most varied forms and made to interact with one another in ways that each time lend a distinct character to the rest of the piece. Without any need for structural complexity, it was enough for the electric guitar riffs to range from a broad, expansive sound to a sharp, direct one, for the keyboards and synthesizers to draw on an ever-shifting degree of intensity and a wide range of tones, and for the rhythm section to turn now cold and glacial, now warm and dynamic. As for their interaction, the digital elements mentioned are always present, while the electric and rhythmic ones can sometimes be absent; in any case, whichever of the three aspects is given the leading role each time knows how to take the spotlight in just the right way, leaving the proper amount of space for the others.

All in all, there's no shortage of reasons to listen to this score, even without watching the film alongside it. Cambuzat, then, deserves applause once again, not least for his ability to give such a clearly defined identity to a work that strays far from the territory the musician is usually accustomed to working in.

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14/12/2010