Artist/ Band: Fractale
Title: Suranne: Live
Label: A Bout de Sun
Year of Release: 2010
Offical Artist/ Band Link

The Review:

This is a band from previous solo artist Julian Julien. It’s officially his 4th album but this is presented live. It’s on his own A Bout de Son label. First thing you notice over his earlier solo works is this is more jazz fusion oriented, but still have the celestial space elements left in. While I did a review on his “Strange” solo, and mentioned several comparisons like Clearlight Symphony, Tri Atma, and Gregory Allan Fitzpatrick (among a few others), this is more brass oriented jazz rock in the vein of a mixture of Ian Carr’s Nucleus, Esa Kotilainen (Wigwam keyboardist ), Magma (emphasis being on the zeuhl style), and elements of dirge, whimsical, and avant garde.

The CD is broken down into five parts with no titles past “Part V” etc. There are a couple of added songs (hidden tracks) at end that bring in more of the zany fusion style. One is like a demented spaghetti western that could have been played by early Gong on acid. I was sent a CD-R with no total time, and no personnel listed or instrumentation, so I can’t give that info but I can say this was a very short CD. Albeit a nice one, it makes the listener wish for more. I did find the kid talking and the mother trying to talk back to him a bit distracting. Seeing it’s a live recording, it did sound like an audience digital recording as it picked up that. The second hidden track (song 7) also brings along the choking bass sax more like a didgeridoo imitation and a more Magma flavor, that develops into a tribal influenced piece. There is no doubt this would be great to see live, as I did get to see some live tracks sent to me separately, and they had fractal morphs going on a large background screen in some of the videos.

While it’s clearly nothing like Julian Julien’s first 3 solos, this fourth venture into the world of brass dominated zeuhl based jazz rock is still interesting and done very well. It does not have the variety I found (or even close) on his “Strange” solo, but I still like this, even though I cannot rave about it. I will, however, be very much be looking forward to Fractale’s next CD.

Reviewed by Lee Henderson on November 7th, 2011

Tracks:

01. Partie XV 2:57
02. Partie VI 2:04
03. Partie V 5:09
04. Partie XVI 4:31
05. Partie XVIII 2:45
06. Sans paiers live at the Sunset (Bonus track) 4:32
07. Clémentine (Bonus track) 5:22

Reviewed Discography

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