Where bought? From the estimable La Face Cachee (The Hidden Face) in Metz, France. Undoubtedly a makeweight 3 euro purchase in a quite a large haul that I picked out of a rack marked 'weird'. I reckon he probably gave this to me for free after rounding down the price.
Confession: I have never given this a listen. This review, therefore, constitutes a largely experiential exercise in which I try to describe what is happening before my very ears. A bit of background first, though.
My band only really tours in France. We've done seven tours in all (brief forays over the Belgian and German borders) and passed through Metz three times. Most times I come home absolutely laden with records, some of which have never actually made it from our rehearsal room back to my shelf. Shameful. I estimate this is a purchase from the second visit in early June 2017 (which is a long time to not have listened to something you own) where I had a bit of a payday splurge.
A little about our artiste:
J-L. BUCCHI is probably best known as the SPEED LIMIT keyboardist. He worked alongside major Zeuhl luminaries such as JANNICK TOP (of MAGMA amongst many other projects) and JEFF SEFFER (of MAGMA, ZAO, and many other projects) -- JANNICK TOP would also contribute to BUCCHI'S SUNFLOWER, as well as on the earlier BUCCHI/ OMETAXALIA album, LETTRE D'OCRE. {NOTE: former SPEED LIMIT band-mate GEORGE JINDA made an album that I consider similar to SUNFLOWER called WHEEL OF LOVE.}
BUCCHI made a number of albums under his name ranging from jazz-funk to electronic to poppy new age, but he is also well-regarded in academic music circles. He has more than doubled in modern classical music as he is a very skilled and trained composer, arranger, and conductor.
BUCCHI spent 12 years at the Conservatory of Versailles where he graduated in piano/ sight reading, chamber music , percussion, fugue , counterpoint, harmony and analysis.
I think this inspires me with some confidence!
OK so this is basically quite edgy and antic library music. Reportages is a clue - I think the ambition for this record is to be the music of the news. Whether it actually was or not, I am unsure.
You could definitely get away with playing cuts like 'Today's Paper' and 'Reportage' at a chilled night of esoteric turntabling (ie. where people are drinking rather than dancing) - it's uptempo, playful, a little bit funky in a fairly straight-laced way.
Some of it, if you added a bunch of reverb and sang over it in a sepulchral tone, might approach John Maus: this is basically synth and drum machine music that is versed in harmony and counterpoint. If anything, that is its strength and failure: it makes all of its progress through musical relationships and maybe doesn't explore the texture and colours that a synth possesses.
'Satellite Call' fairly rips; the only one I didn't like is 'Last Anthem'. I'd love to share some of this with you but no one has ever uploaded it anywhere, and might constitute the most obscure record I own, including ones I have played on.
I'll hang onto this. For one I can't imagine too many takers, and for two some of the esoterica might be nice to dig out in the future.
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