My Jazzy Child – The Drums CD
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My Jazzy Child – The Drums CD
Saying that Damien took aka My jazzy Child his time to record The Drums would be a euphemism, as those 32 intense and dense minutes of music asked for 6 whole years of day-to-day invention, heaven-sent studio time, abandoned grand projects and rescue mission of lost audiofiles imprisoned in dying computers. Describing this hazardous process, one will be awed by what one hears: a super dense, coherent and fierce little gem of a record, which sounds like it was conceptualized from its overture to its finale. There’s also some key idea, exposed in the title but not hearable in all tracks, which kind of holds it together: the use, both as bone-structure and horizon, of fragments of drums sounds removed from rehearsals with King Q4 or old tracks from metalcore band Botch. And a whole lotta rock music. And non-rock too. The rest is indeed in keeping with 6 years of passing time and opportunities: “The Escape” was entirely orchestrated by label mate Orval Carlos Sibelius”, “Suicide with Style” was recorded with live and direct a band, while most other songs were recorded in various home locations, sitting in front of the amplifier and of the computer.
Hearing those labyrinthine and paradoxically harmonious songs, amnesiacs as well as neophytes will also be awed to discover (or rediscover) one the most densely populated universes of the French Underground, as a whole arch of libertarian and solar music genres throb in this album’s afterthoughts: Albert Marcoeur, Swans, The Residents, the Microphones (which Damien claims he “barely knows of”), Ethiopian pop music, stoner rock, early Norwegian black metal, Van Morrison and even Lou Reed, the most famous ballad of which is impressionistically quoted in the fake cover of “Perfect Day”. Hearing those intimate polyphonies and bursts of formal brilliance, veterans will also acknowledge the fact that Damien doesn’t merely speak through other people’s songs and recognize the inimitable blueprint of an old friend – or, at least, of an eminently singular talent. Both as a comeback and a newcomer’s act, The Drums belongs to the kind of artistic statements that one simply cannot overlook.