The forty-five-year adventure that has been the artistic unfolding of Marc Hollander and Veronique Vincent‘s journey has had more the its fair share of artistic dormancy, but this last ten years must have been the most fruitful.
After the overwhelming collaborative extravaganza of Redrawn Figures, the duo has released a work that at once pays homage and then pushes further the long-forgotten genre of the experimental radio play, choosing to flesh out Veronique’s dreamlike text with a myriad of musical flourishes. Joined by various guests to add colour and character to the mysterious surrealism of the story, Aksak Maboul weave a genre-defying web around the listener, guided onward only by Veronique’s recounting, the thread that draws the unwitting ever deeper.
Dreamy droplets of sound entice us into this alternate plane, VV’s voice a whisper not wanting to upset the delicate balance. Words are delivered in French and English, and as a very poor speaker of French, the mystery and sheer romance of her text is a delight. A forced march ensues, sounds are insistent and angular, demanding, pushing the voice in a prescribed direction. Piano-led meandering helps prepare VV for the oncoming journey with a little more depth, the stark notes surrounded by flickers of shadow.In dreams, the voice is sweeter, the piano jauntier, the mood lighter, a sense of fairground commotion which segues into an almost dancey electronic rhythm; upbeat yet self-contained although the appearance of the word storms tends to overwhelm, crazed violin acting as a catalyst, embodying the words and circling the organ vying with harsh metallic percussion.
There is a reawakening, a clearer view outside the storm, with a semi-classical string drama bursting into a Steve Reichian rhythm, fast-paced and formulaic. Bright flashes of feather and the sound of wing beats fill the air, the dialogue made up of various performers follows the flurrying rhythm, disparate musical ideas coalescing into something beyond the multitude of voices and echoed by the waterfall of sensuality. There are loose jazzy ideas, the homemade percussion of children’s television interacting with samba-like rhythms. Flute escapes from the forest, entwining with the percussion above our heads. Like a dream it covers lots of ground, time meaning nothing, the voice seductive yet distant, the words fitting onto the rhythmic playfulness like hands stretched into winter gloves. There is an organ and piano creep, and a reprise of previous motifs, acting like little pebbles keeping the story moving onward; a smeary soundscape finds her whole story erased and a sense of stasis ensues, trapped somehow, awaiting release.A shadow duet helps come to terms with the impasse. Don The Tiger‘s operatic outbursts lending an exotic sheen, emotions running high, figures recurring once again, threads drawing the whole together, snippets of memory in this disparate landscape. The use of synthetic rhythms gives an oddly unreal structure, while the crying sax can’t put off the inevitable denouement which surprises with its oddly funky, romantically French, final freakout delivering us somewhat energised into the arms of the brown dwarfs as the door finally opens.
This is quite the dramatic and mysterious journey, its musical accompaniment a distillation of everything that Aksak stands for. There is nobody to match the sense of adventure; yet there is a homely intimacy which you share with the players. Who knows where their travels will take them next; but for now, immerse yourself in Une Aventure de VV.-Mr Olivetti-
