Arthur Chambry - La Seuz

Futura Resistenza again bolsters its credentials as the new standard-bearer for European art music with this new collection from French troubadour/raconteur, Arthur Chambry. La Seuz imagines the fictional world of Rocondre, a creation of Chambry's used as a narrative device to guide through a 14 song suite of varying jazz-inclined, folk explorations, built from various homemade devices, de-/re-tuned wind and brass instrumentation, chanson, and little-to-no post production.  It's a winding journey all right, a fantastical ethnography of a mythical land that could pass for a lost citation from the NWW list, landing somewhere between ZNR, Areski and the outerzones of the Tapioca & ReR orbits. It's a wild feat of the imagination no doubt, and one that rewards repeated listens, slowly dragging you into its vortex. The vocal-less middle section is particularly immersive, a free jazz influenced waltz that conjures romantic visions of ghostly European plazas and porticos that in part recalls that great O Paradis LP on Vrystaete. Another contribution to the great European arthouse tradition, and just the latest from a label that's about to go on a hot run - watch this space for more Futura Resistenza output in the coming weeks.