Sunday Features - CDs - October 17, 2004

Hector Zazou (Materiali Sonori)

Once again, Hector Zazou has delivered yet another masterpiece, which is comparable to the recent works like Sahara Blue and Songs From the Cold Seas. This time the Strong Current is a collaboration among a new string of famous or more obscure singers (Laurie Anderson, Jane Birkin, Lisa Germano, Nicola Hitchcock from Mandalay, Melanie Gabriel girl of Peter, Lori Carson, Caroline Lavelle, Emma Stow, Catherine Russell, and Sarah-Jane Morris) and his usual assistants (Ryuichi Sakamoto, Bill Rieflin, and the clarinettist Renaud Pion).


Title: Strong Currents (French Release)
Release Date: September 29, 2003

Track 01. Into your Dreams (with Laurie Anderson)
Track 12. Ocean of Sound (with Laurie Anderson)
Laurie recorded the three texts that Hector Zazou sent to her by fax. Laurie's voice, without any effects, is already so full and so contained.

Track 02. Mmmh (with Mélanie Gabriel)
Mmmh is difficult song on which the great voices were crashed to pieces and the small ones were drown. After 10 years of time without finding the right vocalist, Mmmh is finally completed with a surprise voice. Hector Zazou found Mélanie Gabriel accidentally from a live performance of the her father Peter Gabriel's last Real World tour. Song was sent to the office of Peter Gabriel, his daughter was a bit rambling while the song was playing on telephone. From now on, after listening to this beautiful track, it's no doubt that Mélanie Gabriel will appear in the Hector Zazou's albums more often.

Track 03. Beauty (with Jane Birkin)
During the working process of "Beauty", several pianists almost break the fingers in the studio. Three years later Stefano Bollani entered to the studio, his hands flied in all directions while he was still warming up! Stefano Bollani definitely has the doubted forgiveness, which brings us his unique piano style with strong currents, with perplexity.

Track 04. In the Middle of the Night (with Lori Carson)
This song was produced in Seattle, from beginning to end, with the battery of Bill Rieflin (former R.E.M. drummer), the guitar of Chris, and the voice of Lori Carson.

Track 05. Let it Blow (with Emma Stow)
Emma Stow, who is one of the member of Phosphorus (the Roman duo with Crammed Discs), sings with longing sadness in "Let it blow". Emma's haunting voice infused into the piano and the bass perfectly, it expands the horizon of this ablum to another level. May be just like Hector Zazou once described that "Emma seasoned her Roman salad with the french dressing . . . " Definitely, it's something worth tasting!

Track 06. Under My Wing (with Nina Hynes)
Nina, a girl of (owner of) an Irish pub, does not like the folklore. I will not try to define Nina Hynes here, although everyone thought this song was performed by Bjork. There is something of délicieusement sick in this strange girl that makes me feel so guilty to compare her voice with Bjork. "Like listening the acid drop voice plunged in a bath of LSD", Hector said.

Track 07. The Freeze (with Caroline Lavelle)
From "Shining Midnight", to "Lights in the Dark", to "Coming Home" (the album of Yungchen Lhamo), to the latest one "Strong Currents", Caroline Lavelle has been working with Hector Zazou for so many years. A long history of Freeze! This lyrics was actually written at the time when Hector Zazou was still on the voyage of the remarkable ablum "Songs of the Cold Seas". Just like another unfinished piece left behind somewhere in his backseat, and then someone finds it by chance and make it happen. Caroline, at last, succeeded in binding the whole.

Track 08. Remember (with Sarah-Jane Morris)
Sarah Jane Morris is a truly independent spirit who's been making exciting music and pushing the envelope ever since her heady days at the top of the charts alongside Jimmy Sommerville in The Communards. Hector Zazou discovered Sarah-Jane Morris through her husband David Coulter.

Track 09. Is This (with Catherine Russell)
In geology as in music, there are some slips and cracks in which old layers are revealed and some new ones are recomposed. Certain features in "Is This" are accentuated with electronics and with dissonances pointed at end of the layers. Not a question of gumming, rather of underlining. Ryuichi Sakamoto played the piano piece for this track; he was able to carry it out precisely and carefully, which makes the piano arrangements so recognizable. Catherine has a history of being the pretty chorus behind Cyndi Lauper, Madonna or Costello Elvis.

Track 10. Indiana Moon (with Lisa Germano)
Lisa Germano has been worked with so many artists throughout her career, including David Bowie, Iggy Pop, U2, Calexico, Ed Harcourt, Harold Budd, and now Hector Zazou.
Born and raised in Bloomington Indiana where she still lives with her cats and extensive gardens. Lisa Germano went solo after lending her fiddle to John Mellencamp's cause. This track "Indiana Moon" is perfectly written for her darkness and abrasively brooding voice.

Track 11. Morning (with Nicola Hitchcock)
Hector Zazou invited the singer of a group that everyone knew for a long time: Miss Nicola Hitchcock (from Mandalay). With Sakamoto's piano played in the "Morning", this vibrato can literally be auscultated by breathing through the lungs of the very naked Nicola.


Title: Strong Currents (Italian Release)
Release Date: September 29, 2003

Italian release in the series Sonora Portraits. The CD is packed in a slipcase featuring a 94-page booklet with discography and an interview with Hector Zazou. In this interview he talks about Minimalists, Brian Eno, Laurie Anderson, and tells his side of the story about the omission of the tracks To A Reason and Victim Of Stars on the final version of Sahara Blue. The interview also includes philosophical reflections of his career as a global musician, a chronology of his works, photos by John b. Root and an introductory essay by Giampiero Bigazzi.

Hector Zazou has always dedicated himself to contemporary electronic music, and has researched into the music of the world and the global concept of making music. In his musical world, anything is fair game — operatic arias, children's songs, Afro-pop, jazzy horn charts, and delicate chamber music.

"The point of departure is never important. What is important is the detail that I find and put in my suitcase, and which belongs to me."

The disc is a also intimist, the songs in the "Strong Currents" are as contained as the ones in "Songs of the cold seas". Works of his close friends, of his meanders and its depths, "Strong currents" is perhaps as more difficult of access as its predecessor. Songs are built in the light shift of melody, the result is quite disconcert. But certainly this work has its moments of grace ("Let it blow" by Emma Stow, and "Is this" by C.Russell), of stridency (the raucous voice of Sarah-Jane Morris), of shifted and minimal poetry ("Ocean Of Sound" by Laurie Anderson).

Complex, ambitious, obscure like the human heart, it definitely deserves more than one's inattentive attention.