Jacques Barbéri & Laurent Pernice - Apocalypse Des Oiseaux (CD Review)

01.Création des animaux
02.La peau du prophète
03.La chasse
04.Oiseaux miroirs
05.Espace
06.Le carrousel des cavaliers
07.Un désert de paupières
08.Le mausolée aux perruches
09.Basse danse
10.Kosmogonie 1
11.L’ultime toile
12.Kosmogonie 2
13.L’origine du monde
14.Déluge


Jacques Barbéri (Various Instruments)
Laurent Pernice (Various Instruments)

"L'Apocalypse Des Oiseaux" is the new masterwork of the 2 french cult musicians Jacques Barbéri and Laurent Pernice. Jacques Barbéri is well known as member of the famous French band Palo Alto but also as a brillant SF writer (he began with the group Limite with, amongst others, Antoine Volodine, Francis Berthelot and Emmanuel Jouanne), one of the most original of his generation.

Laurent Pernice began in the French cult band Nox and did also several remarquable solo albums. He’s regularly invited to play in Palo Alto. "L'Apocalypse Des Oiseaux" is a vast and ambitious oratorio for the famous painter Paolo Ucello. It’s a fantastic mix of surrealistic and dark landscapes, poésie sonore, concrete music, electronic sounds and weird atmospheres. It evokes the best works of Bernard Parmegiani or Luc Ferrari but in a very personal way.

We start with some very offbeat avante garde jazz ramblings, no structure or form, just sounds without direction, this is followed by some outside recordings of birdsong with some spoken bit over it.This continues into the next track with a bit of added sax.

Now at least 'Oiseaux miroirs' has a "something" about it, a simple electronic pulse, samples and more spoken word.

And back to the weird, 'Escape' sounds like a nightmare at the zoo, im pretty sure that the animal sounds are made on the musical instruments, well why play them properly?

'Le carrousel des cavaliers' is a five minute electronic noize, but one i do like very much in the style of Occupier/Exorium, what i like to call "Anti-Music".

For the next 2 tracks we return to bird sounds and spoken word and then a bit of a surprise as 'Basse danse' has some music on it, only just scrapes it mind you at the beginning before heading back to jungle noises.

'Kosmogonie 1' is another spoken piece this time of electronic noise, this is followed by, guess what? Yes more birdsong and spoken word with a few added synth noises, which leads us into the last song, which is just as weird/bad/good as the rest.

Rating 5/10
For fans of: Sigihl, Faust, Kouma, Exorium/Occupier