Download not available

Khomsa is the heroine in the movie Bezness, and also inspires one of many musical themes from Tunisian films and theater documented on this CD. Oud player Anouar Brahem has performed these pieces across a decade with different ensembles, but for the first time they were recorded in one studio setting. The instrumentation varies in size and de-emphasizes Brahem's role as a frontman. In fact, upon listening, this could just as easily be credited under the direction of the brilliant accordionist Richard Galliano, for his role is heard more often as the lead instrument. The musicians combine here and there with the dynamic ECM signature rhythm team of bassist Palle Danielsson and drummer Jon Christensen, or in certain instances pianist François Couturier, violinist Bechir Selmi, and on rare occasion soprano saxophonist Jean Marc Larché. The themes are luxurious, rich, beautiful, and organic, with no wasted motion or excesses, and there is a feeling of being on a journey. Galliano's solo "Comme un Depart," the solo oud of Brahem in "L'Infini Jour," and Selmi's "Regard de Mouette" get the caravan slowly started. "Claquent les Voiles" sports Brahem's mysterious Middle Eastern lines and chords with the masterful bassist and drummer, while "Vague" is hymnal in Galliano's ability to stretch long tied notes with his bellows. Couturier is a delicate stylist, matching theological timbres on "Vague," and working in tandem with Brahem during "Seule" and on the light 6/8 rhythm of "Nouvelle Vague" with Galliano. He also plays a little synthesizer, specifically during the circular "Un Sentier d'Alliance" aside overdubbed echoed piano and soprano sax. Most of the collective play on "Ain Ghazel," a sensitive and sensual musical sketch, features contrasting soprano sax from Larché, atypically animated drumming by Christensen, and Brahem's pensive oud as the period on a sentence. "Souffle un Vent de Sable" shows a group design in breathing, balanced tones led by Galliano, and Brahem coming in after the fact with the bass and drums. The title track displays a unified whole in the ECM spirit with Brahem, Galliano, Couturier, and Danielsson. Closest to jazz is "Des Rayons et des Ombres," a fast trio number with Galliano and the rhythm section approaching bop. "Comme une Absence" concludes the project with two overdubbed violin tracks from Selmi. The buyer should be aware that the personnel listed on the booklet cover does not reflect the entire combo at any one time. Otherwise, this is a beautiful contemporary statement reflecting the cinematic forms Brahem loves, mixed with European classical and improvisational sensibilities, professionally rendered, and well within the tradition of world jazz and the clean ECM concept.© Michael G. Nastos /TiVo

If 2017 proved anything, it's that there are endless ways of making protest music. On Sincerely, Future Pollution, Timber Timbre take a poetic approach to expressing political discontent; though they've couched their messages in vintage sounds before, they've never done it quite so pointedly. After reinterpreting '50s doo wop on their self-titled debut, '60s folk on Creep on Creepin' On and '70s funk and country on Hot Dreams, for their fourth album the dial on Timber Timbre's time machine lands on the '80s, and the band excels at subverting the decade's excess and artificiality. By combining fake sounds and real feelings into ultra-smooth sketches of corruption, they create a vivid world full of grifters, sewers, and floating cathedrals. Recorded in Paris with vintage equipment, Sincerely, Future Pollution doesn't so much revive the '80s as reanimate its bloated corpse. Timber Timbre mix and match a wide array of the decade's cool and uncool sounds into songs that are equally familiar and disorienting; on the narcotized opening track, "Velvet Gloves & Spit," luminous synths land somewhere between Bryan Ferry and Foreigner, though Taylor Kirk's velvet drawl puts the song closer to the former than the latter. The disconnect between Kirk's voice and his surroundings adds another layer of surrealism to songs like "Western Questions," where he sings about being "at the counter of a luxury liner with a noose in my hand." Timber Timbre remain masters of production and arrangement, and they find ways to impart the spacy strangeness of their earlier work on Sincerely, Future Pollution's neon sounds. "Bleu Nuit" pairs the glossy pseudo-sophistication of sax and gated drums with rippling synth arpeggios that sound like they're from another dimension, while the title track could be a mildewed outtake from Jan Hammer's Miami Vice soundtrack. Elsewhere, the swampy, reverbed guitars on "Sewer Blues" and "Floating Cathedral" recall Angelo Badalamenti's music for Twin Peaks, another '80s cultural artifact that was revived in 2017. Still, Sincerely, Future Pollution is at its most gripping when Timber Timbre fully commit to reinventing '80s cheese and glitz. "Moment" is as genuine as it is schmaltzy, with Kirk's tenderness and frustration building to a peak that culminates with a virtuosic guitar solo that sounds like a mirror twin of Phil Collins' "Don't Lose My Number." "Grifting" is another standout, a piece of rubbery funk indebted to Scary Monsters-era Bowie that holds its own when it comes to detached debauchery. Turns like these emphasize what an unusual album Sincerely, Future Pollution is, even by Timber Timbre's standards; despite its flashy sounds, it's one of the group's most insular sets of songs. Nevertheless, Kirk and company express how the past can poison the present and days yet to come in ways that are uniquely theirs.© Heather Phares /TiVo