“Difficult to tame? Maybe. But Souvenir Rêvé d'une Promenade Nocturne is more than just a daring album”
1 Saint Pierre 3:07
2 Jardin des Plantes 6:59
3 Gournerie 4:53
4 Nantes Atlantiques 3:00
5 Ile de Versailles 2:55
6 Grand Blottereau 3:40
7 Procé 5:33
8 Sainte Anne 3:11
9 Prairie aux Ducs 4:31
10 Quai des Antilles 2:53
11 Beaulieu 1:22
12 Jonelière 3:21
13 Beaujoire 7:16
14 Gare Sud 12:00
(CD/DVD 64:42) (V.F.)
(Experimental EM)
It's good to hear a more daring Bertrand Loreau. It means that the man is in full control of his means and that he isn't afraid to create out of his comfort zone. Make hear the images, make speak their pixels. It's not a small matter. It's an audacious project that the electronic bard of Nantes has agree to do by letting speak his vision and by letting glide his night-feelings, like the wings of a diurnal predator chasing the beauties of the night dreams, over the panoramas of the photographer Lionel Palierne. The universe of SOUVENIR RÊVÉ D'UNE PROMENADE NOCTURNE is of complexity with 14 musical paintings which depict 14 places of Nantes dressed of its nights where the silence breathes at blows of secrets. Bertrand Loreau succeeds marvellously to take away the shadows of silence out of more than hundred photos by forging abstract structures where abound fragments of melody, showing all the tenderness and the meditative poetry which tears and torments Bertrand Loreau's introspection. Beyond its experimental appearances SOUVENIR RÊVÉ D'UNE PROMENADE NOCTURNE is an eclectic work where the poetry of Loreau is heard through its ambiences, its abstract sound paintings and its soft incursions in his alleys laminated by the Berlin School style. From Vangelis to Tangerine Dream, Loreau does quite a tour de force by giving life to the day death.
Steps on pavement, barking of dogs and trots of a ghost coachman which resound in winds whistling for the anger of blackness among whistling of wandering onlookers, Saint Pierre offers all the panoply of the contradictions of the night-life of Nantes. If Lionel Palierne's images are beautiful, the music of Bertrand Loreau finds to it some contrary significations with these tones of a glass look which kiss the sometimes surreal images of Jardin des Plantes. This is an organic universe which breathes through these photos, driving the listener in a mode of reflections to invisible connotations. The statues of the garden push Jardin des Plantes up until a dance of oscillations and pulsations. The sky is painted of cosmic streaks and necromantic lamentations which set ablaze an electronic rhythm of which the repetitive impulses kiss a life out of life which runs away by train. It's one of the good moments which enters into a forest of silvered wings locusts with Gournerie. We fall in the pure organico-ambient phase of this fascinating artistic fusion between Loreau and Palierne. Nantes Atlantiques is decorated by breaths of metal and by organic mooing which bicker the night-life of Nantes airport. Ile de Versailles offers a fine structure of rhythm which adopts the influences of Edgar Froese and Vangelis, while that Grand Blottereau proposes a soft French-style night-musing with sounds of accordion lost in blue mists which gather the tears of a synth to the sentimental adrift . We are without a doubt in the most beautiful passage of SOUVENIR RÊVÉ D'UNE PROMENADE NOCTURNE while Bertrand Loreau continues to make his synths cry minimalist tears which flow under the twisted lamentations of Procé. Procé which spreads a fascinating melancholic procession, quite as the very poetic Saint Anne which cries and cries of her dark melody, making spring a soft brook of sequences which dance in oblivion. This is some great Loreau we have here. After two tracks with abstract musical faces, Beaulieu offers a soft carousel glittering such as the bluish melodies of the Dream. Jonelière brings us back into the intersidereal void of a night which is dying while that Beaujoire adopts marvellously its still life with electronic chirping and gurgling before offering a great sequenced approach where the keys are dancing as far as the eyes can see. Swirling into happiness, the track inhales the life under fluty breaths to made blush Peter Baumann. Gare Sud is simply wonderful. After an intro of ethereal mysteries and wild imaginings of the machines, the race on the pavement starts again. These noises of clogs forge an over-subtle tempo that a line of sequences remodels into a nursery rhyme for wandering. A superb passage unique to the tenderness of Loreau who frees the last minutes of the album with a magnificent carousel ritornello where the universe stops to watch dancing the angels. A moment of wandering is settling down. And it's the clogs which dance by limping in smoke ashes which reanimate the life whilst the sequence comes back to adopt this oneiric approach which inhales the drama à la Halloween. It's a pity that the finale has to wake up the day.
Difficult to tame? Maybe. But that doesn't strip all the beauty you will find here and there among a collection of 14 tracks filled by the great camera shots of Lionel Palierne. Offered in a CD/DVD combo, the sound effect is staggering on the DVD, SOUVENIR RÊVÉ D'UNE PROMENADE NOCTURNE is an inspiring work with deep emotions which will appeals the fans of electronic dialects and background noises. Noises and sounds from a fusion of a contemporary alchemist always in quest of an artistic search as high as his visions. Did I tell you that Bertrand Loreau is more daring than sublimely lyrical?
Sylvain Lupari (June 5th, 2013) *****
Available at Bertrand Loreau Music
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