FRENCH TV
7: The Case Against Art
(PRETENTIOUS DINOSAUR RECORDS CD006)
A new CD of French TV is always an adventure musically and as far as it’s the artwork concerned. It’s great again with the latter on “The Case Against Art”, when you look at the quasi-serious introduction on the band by a so-called expert. Musically this album is probably the strongest and most accessible from Mike Sary’s band. The central track is a cover of “Partly The State”, from which the original comes from “Beginnings”, a collection of obscure recordings by Happy The Man. This version is strong because on one side it improves in production terms the demo very much and Sary has given it an own interpretation, with for example folk-like, Gentle Giant-like vocals. On the other side they have stayed very close to the mood of the song of 1974 and this is particularly due to the presence of singer/flutist Chris Fortney, the composer of the piece. But the other four tracks are well worth listening too. For example the subtle structure of “Viable Tissue Matter”. Beautiful symphonic fragments, with Eddie Jobson-like violin-passages, a slow bas- and drum-accompaniment, melodious flute and saxophone-parts, floating synthesizer-sounds and sharp and legato guitar-work are some of the ingredients with which this composition is coloured in an almost orchestral way. Further on there’s plenty of space for that humour-full, typical French TV adventurousness, like the walls-rhythm and arrangement from the sometimes vaudeville-like “Under The Big W”, that brings to mind associations with a barrel organ fed by a progressive music-cylinder. And Sary and co. also know how to send you barking up the wrong tree when it comes to rhythmical shifts, like in the sparkling “That Thing On The Wall” and “One Humiliating Incident After Another”, which has been revived with Zappa-like jazz-rock-injections. But everything is placed in the service of the compositions, which contain the same liveliness as many Canterbury song, without having a stylistic similarity with that style. Actually, French TV should overgrown it’s cult-status with the convincing “The Case Against Art”.
7: The Case Against Art
(PRETENTIOUS DINOSAUR RECORDS CD006)
A new CD of French TV is always an adventure musically and as far as it’s the artwork concerned. It’s great again with the latter on “The Case Against Art”, when you look at the quasi-serious introduction on the band by a so-called expert. Musically this album is probably the strongest and most accessible from Mike Sary’s band. The central track is a cover of “Partly The State”, from which the original comes from “Beginnings”, a collection of obscure recordings by Happy The Man. This version is strong because on one side it improves in production terms the demo very much and Sary has given it an own interpretation, with for example folk-like, Gentle Giant-like vocals. On the other side they have stayed very close to the mood of the song of 1974 and this is particularly due to the presence of singer/flutist Chris Fortney, the composer of the piece. But the other four tracks are well worth listening too. For example the subtle structure of “Viable Tissue Matter”. Beautiful symphonic fragments, with Eddie Jobson-like violin-passages, a slow bas- and drum-accompaniment, melodious flute and saxophone-parts, floating synthesizer-sounds and sharp and legato guitar-work are some of the ingredients with which this composition is coloured in an almost orchestral way. Further on there’s plenty of space for that humour-full, typical French TV adventurousness, like the walls-rhythm and arrangement from the sometimes vaudeville-like “Under The Big W”, that brings to mind associations with a barrel organ fed by a progressive music-cylinder. And Sary and co. also know how to send you barking up the wrong tree when it comes to rhythmical shifts, like in the sparkling “That Thing On The Wall” and “One Humiliating Incident After Another”, which has been revived with Zappa-like jazz-rock-injections. But everything is placed in the service of the compositions, which contain the same liveliness as many Canterbury song, without having a stylistic similarity with that style. Actually, French TV should overgrown it’s cult-status with the convincing “The Case Against Art”.