Menace Jazz | Fusion 5 Items

After the release of their critically acclaimed first album « Bluestaeb & S. Fidelity Present Underground Canopy » (menace - 2020), Underground Canopy (uc) was able to take time, due to the unforeseen period of doubt in 2020, to craft new compositions with a fresh approach. Throughout this forced period of introspection, the Parisian band experimented with more refined musical codes and colorful sounds.

Following the new additions of Raphaël Henry on drums and Christopher Johnson on electric guitar, UC was able to record and film a live rendition of four original pieces at the end of 2020, thanks to an invitation by the Centre des Arts d’Enghien-les-Bains’s artistic program and Sense. These music videos, each filmed in one shot by Romain Lalire, capture UC’s musical digressions away from their mainly hip-hop and groove-infused jams and into new territory.

The resulting new EP «Séquences : Live Session» celebrates cinematic aesthetics and the suspension of time. It stands as an audiovisual testimonial to the band’s continued progression. In this era marked by uncertainty but full of hope, what will come next?

After the release of their critically acclaimed first album « Bluestaeb & S. Fidelity Present Underground Canopy » (menace - 2020), Underground Canopy (uc) was able to take time, due to the unforeseen period of doubt in 2020, to craft new compositions with a fresh approach. Throughout this forced period of introspection, the Parisian band experimented with more refined musical codes and colorful sounds.

Following the new additions of Raphaël Henry on drums and Christopher Johnson on electric guitar, UC was able to record and film a live rendition of four original pieces at the end of 2020, thanks to an invitation by the Centre des Arts d’Enghien-les-Bains’s artistic program and Sense. These music videos, each filmed in one shot by Romain Lalire, capture UC’s musical digressions away from their mainly hip-hop and groove-infused jams and into new territory.

The resulting new EP «Séquences : Live Session» celebrates cinematic aesthetics and the suspension of time. It stands as an audiovisual testimonial to the band’s continued progression. In this era marked by uncertainty but full of hope, what will come next?

Straight out of New York, the debut 7 inch by Cho and Random Impetus was presented by Menace label and first released in the USA in July 2019. Featuring the two singles "Brother Sister" and "Candlelight", the EP is a powerful call to humanity. Previously released on vinyl, this project was directed by Japanese artist Cho and features local musicians. It was recorded in analog, giving the track a very old school vibe by utilizing jazz, funk, soul and disco melodies to create a rich 1970s-esque sound. "Brother Sister", is a feel-good modern disco that could easily pass as something from the heyday of the genre, and "Candlelight," another sure-shot tune is a funk groover with its jazzy horn harmonies and strong male vocals. Many DJs featured the 7 inch record during their sets shortly after its release, including Floating Points, DJ Muro, Richie Medina and many more... becoming a club anthem in New York City. The record also caught the attention of Paris-based French DJ Hugo LX, who is very close to the Menace collective and also a genuine funk and disco enthusiast. Offering a remix album for Cho and Random Impetus' 7-inch record seemed evident for him. He invited DJ Spinna, the renowned hip-hop and house producer from Brooklyn, as well as his long-time friend and collaborator, to join him on the project. This remixed record actually enters a cycle in Hugo LX's work, as he collaborates with Japanese artists on a yearly-basis, among others Satoshi Tomiie, Toshio Matsuura, Kuniyuki or Takecha. The Paris-NYC-Tokyo triangle is also key in his work: his music drew many influences from these cities. Hugo LX remixed the track "Brother Sister" in a style matching the soul, funk, and disco vibes of his DJ sets, with a more contemporary approach. As for DJ Spinna, he delivered a progressive version of the track "Candlelight": more electronic-sounding, it feels softly psychedelic

Silent Room, the duo formed by Enzo Carniel and Filippo Vignato is a conversation. Between the piano of the first and the trombone of the second, two living forces of the European jazz scene; between France and Italy; between acoustics and electronics. A patient dialogue initiated on the benches of the conservatory in Paris, which was nourished by the music of German trombonist Albert Mangelsdorff (to whom the duo paid homage for a concert at the Cité des Arts in 2014), musical moments shared as a group (Enzo Carniel's sextet at the Jazz à la Villette festival in particular) and in pairs - for numerous concerts given on both sides of the Alps - before perfecting their common grammar, giving birth to their own repertoire, creating their own space.

This first album, Aria, released on the Franco-Japanese label Menace, was recorded in the setting of the Villa Cicaletto in Tuscany, whose Silent Room the duo made their own in September 2019. Carniel had just released Wallsdown, the third elegiac disc of his House of Echo project (Jazz & People, 2020) and Vignato of an intense live duo recorded with American cellist Hank Roberts (Ghost Dance, on CamJazz in 2019).

The album is carried by simple melodies, tenuous threads on which the two improvisers who have slowly got to know each other crisscross and let their voices express themselves. Aria can refer to the opening of Bach's Goldberg variations, to sung opera arias, but above all to any expressive melody that develops the imagination. Aria is also the air in Italian: the air that comes from the breath, the air that fills the room, the air that vibrates and is transformed into sound. The repertoire is therefore this collection of Arias composed by Enzo Carniel and Filippo Vignato.

If the duo advocates with this album its jazz heritage - that of improvisation and conversation, of freedom and virtuosity - and claims to be Carla and Paul Bley, Keith Jarrett, Gary Valente, Albert Mangelsdorff, Ornette Coleman or John Surman; it also explores the contemporary colors of electronic music, ambient and Japanese minimalism. The use of the prepared piano, Fender Rhodes and synthesizers colors the sound space of the acoustic piano and trombone. The eponymous composition that opens the album in acoustic, closes it in an electronic version, illuminating the path of the duo between the two universes.

In the almost plant-like composition "In All Nilautpaula", Enzo Carniel evokes the water lily (in Sanskrit) coming to purify the water around him. On "Babele", Filippo Vignato invokes the great question of language: thanks to Arias, and therefore melodies, language becomes universal through music, and only the sensory experience counts.

Born from Carniel and Vignato's desire to create a sound space that would be filled with as many melodies as silence, a place for listening, dialogue and meditation, Aria is one of those rare records that contain entire worlds.