Double 10"
Six years on from their first collaboration, Delphine Dora and Dominique Depret reunite for another intriguing work full of left turns and off centre idiosyncrasies. Recorded in a church in the small French town of Mauzun, Dora's characteristic keyboard playing and voice intersects with Depret's modest, jazz-influenced guitar playing to quite strange effect, elliptical guitar figures contrasting with droning keys. There's an ebullience to Depret's contributions that takes Dora away from the heavy sonority of her recent work, feeling almost improvised at times and certainly unpredictable. The church setting alongside Dora's gothic vocal add a haunting gravitas, but the tone is more playful than portentous, as if the pair are enjoying the opportunity rather than attempting to access the divine. Since it makes for a neat contrast to the other work of Dora's that i know well, it shows her to be an astute collaborator in a way you'd not necessarily imagine from her acutely realised solo material, laying the road open for who knows what next. Here for whatever it is.