Versus (feat. Francesco Tristano, Les Siècles & François-Xavier Roth)

Album review

An untouchable. The status of Carl Craig , pioneer of Detroit Techno, is such that without him, countless electro tinkers would still be fooling around with their Playmobil to this day... the album that he offers here is a project all in its own right. Versus is in effect a kind of work in progress which subscribes to the philosophy of InFiné, an expert in stylistic hybridisation, and Planet E, the stable founded by Craig en 1991. It is also a kind of epilogue to a concert that the American played in 2008, at the Cité de la Musique, at which he was accompanied by the Les Siècles orchestra directed by François-Xavier Roth, Berlin electro producer Moritz Von Oswald and classical pianist (and electro musician) Francesco Tristano Schlimé. On the bill, City Life by Steve Reich, Streets by Bruno Mantovani and six pieces by Craig… Almost a decade later, Versus takes its inspiration from a this meeting of the genres. Here we find electronic miniatures plunged into the grandeur of symphonic music. Twelve of the fourteen pieces on the record are by Craig (mostly his great classics), with Tristano looking after the arrangements. The latter is also the writer of the other two pieces. Versus offers, above all, welcome and intelligently-composed and arranged performances which avoid the clichés that the marketing label " techno meets classical " could easily conjure up.. Inspiring and inspired. © MD/Qobuz