Customer Reviews

Mantis

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Truffaz is a French trumpeter that explores the conjunction between Miles Davis jazz sounds with current Electronica-Dance tunes like Drum'n'Bass. This album also has a little of what we could see in "The Mask" (Hip Hop orientes) and the remarkable CD "Revisited" with remixes of previous tracks. Nevertheless, there is a new powerful and experimental sonic exploration here. Recommendable for those who love jazz and the sounds of Dance music.

I really do not understand how one can make any analogy to Nu-Jazz, DrumNBass, HipHop or Nils Petter Molvaer, because there is none. Indeed, Eric Truffaz is much more experimental and innovative than only mixing Jazz with Electronica, and his style is much more complex than Nils Petter Molvaer. If you compare it to anything, then to Fusion. But do not make the mistake to think of Miles Davis. This comparison is just so cliche, and most of the times is even highly unjustified. Truffaz has his own style, and I find it to be less lyrical.

I like "Mantis" very much, and I can't make any comparison to another Jazz artist. This is maybe the best compliment you can make, because in recent years, younger Jazz artists tended to be very uninnovative (see Nils Petter Molvaer). In contrast, Truffaz creates a new sound, maybe some kind of New-Style-Fusion. The biggest strength is experimentation with rhythm, which are at times really complex, much more complex than anyhing the Norwegian "Jazz"-musicians have ever created.

The sound is consistently dark, at times it makes you even feel a little uncomfortable. Certainly it does not help to light up your mood. I think it is a good sign if an album can create a special athmosphere.

Well, it is 2006 now, and if you look who is invited to the biggest Jazz festivals (Montreal, Montreux,...) you won't find Bugge Wesseltoft or Nils Petter Molvaer, but you find Eric Truffaz. This clearly shows who of those musicians have created something new, something you will still listen to in 10 years.

To describe this album as "cliched" is the most backwards review I've ever heard. Not to dismiss squirreldive's review or anything, because do I see the similarity to Nils Petter Molvaer's ECM recordings, but this is very unique music. Tracks like "Magrouni" are so unique, yet at the same time work perfectly. There is also a mind-blowing dynamic range in the songs. Lyrical duets, like the ethereal "Nina Valeria," are juxtaposed next to experimental "beat-boxing" tracks, like "Parlophone." Phillipe Garcia's drum n bass inspired drumming cut deep grooves into songs like "The Point." Truffaz follows the pioneer of fusion trumpet, Miles Davis by using a wah pedal on the bonus track, a reprise of "Magrouni," to create a marvelous energetic effect. The album is solid from start to finish, but don't take my word for it; listen to the samples.

I loved Mr. Truffaz's album "the mask" and its super-hyper jazz. But his follow up is quite the opposite. "Mantis" for one incorporates a terrible cliched electric guitar. It sounds familiar to the style in which Nils Petter Molvaer uses it on his record "Tlon", which i recommend over this mess of songs. It seems that Truffaz has lost his edge and direction, which he tries to cover up by throwing random genres of music into boring, beaten-down tracks and surrounding those songs with even more lifeless music. Truffaz is great, just in a rut(i hope?).