Fabrice Sotton - "Terre Inconnue" (and other albums)
Here's one that came out last month (Edit: It's a year later now... the album came out Dec 2009)...
Fabrice Sotton - "Terre Inconnue"
I can't find much on this guy. Here's his website, all in French. You can listen to each song on his album in full...
http://sottonclub.musicblog.fr/
He plays piano, some electric. As far as I can tell, this recording is a piano trio (bass, drums), some acoustic, some organ. There's a guest horn on a track or two, and I think on one track it's a theremin I'm hearing. Overall, a very pretty album.
I would compare it to some of Abdullah Ibrahim's solo and trio work, maybe a laid back version of Avishai Cohen's "Gently Disturbed". The first half of the album is strong; the second half seems to lose some steam, but that could just be me and I might change that opinion in a week or two, especially since I purchased it thinking it would be a fantastic early morning album, but I haven't yet played it with the sun coming up. I'm very glad I own it.
Oh, hey, here's his myspace, too...
http://www.myspace.com/sottonclub
The song "Lullaby" brilliantly opens the album. It just draws me right in.
Here's the emusic page...
http://www.emusic.com/album/Fabrice-Sotton-Terre-inconnue-MP3-Download/11714822.html
Fabrice Sotton - "Terre Inconnue"
I can't find much on this guy. Here's his website, all in French. You can listen to each song on his album in full...
http://sottonclub.musicblog.fr/
He plays piano, some electric. As far as I can tell, this recording is a piano trio (bass, drums), some acoustic, some organ. There's a guest horn on a track or two, and I think on one track it's a theremin I'm hearing. Overall, a very pretty album.
I would compare it to some of Abdullah Ibrahim's solo and trio work, maybe a laid back version of Avishai Cohen's "Gently Disturbed". The first half of the album is strong; the second half seems to lose some steam, but that could just be me and I might change that opinion in a week or two, especially since I purchased it thinking it would be a fantastic early morning album, but I haven't yet played it with the sun coming up. I'm very glad I own it.
Oh, hey, here's his myspace, too...
http://www.myspace.com/sottonclub
The song "Lullaby" brilliantly opens the album. It just draws me right in.
Here's the emusic page...
http://www.emusic.com/album/Fabrice-Sotton-Terre-inconnue-MP3-Download/11714822.html
Comments
Cross that one off the bucket list. The album lived up to high expectations.
Fabrice's new album...
Fabrice Sotton - "L'attente"
I'm only listening to the first track now and it's totally blowing me away. Fabrice switches from traditional to electronic piano within the same song. The composition has mysterious strings slicing through the interludes. Fabrice's sound on this track, it has the introspection of a Abdullah Ibrahim solo piece with transitions to a playful bounciness of a Vince Guarldi tune. I can't believe how much fun that first track was and how pretty a tune it was.
Okay, second track was a solid Sotton quiet piano piece that is typical of his previous albums. Very nice.
Wow, third track is some crazy orchestral piece... very cool.
Fourth track, the first thing it makes me think of is a Jarrett Amercian Quartet tune or maybe an Ibrahim "African Marketplace" kind of vibe. Wow, this album is so damn good. I'm gonna stop babbling about it track by track.
What a great way to start a Monday morning! I've had a couple weeks of bad health, the last five days typified by tremendous pain, and to wake up this morning feeling like I've been through the worst of it but exhausted, and to hear this music, what a great way to start feeling good about life again.
Thanks, Fabrice.
Here's his website, which lets you listen to the album in full...
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://sottonclub.musicblog.fr/&ei=zeohTcaTEIuusAP0irmaDw&sa=X&oi=translate&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CEUQ7gEwBg&prev=/search%3Fq%3D%2522fabrice%2Bsotton%2522%2B%2522l%2527attente%2522%26hl%3Den%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DYRS%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official%26prmd%3Divnso
Hey, Fabrice, if you're reading this, letting people preview your album in advance of buying, it's not just a generous act, but it's the right thing to do and it builds listener loyalty. Speaking for myself, if an artist only lets me hear thirty second samples of their music, I'm typically not going to take the risk on purchasing it. But when someone like yourself puts the whole album up for previewing, one, it makes me appreciate that musician even more for allowing the listen, and two, as in the case with your previous album "Terre Inconnue", listening to the entire album cemented in my mind the need to purchase it, which I did... immediately. Same thing now with "L'attente." I'll be hitting the download button pretty much after I've finished making this post here and on the AllAboutJazz site.
Cheers.