Artist.......: Jerome Langlois
Album........: Molignak
Label........: ProgQuebec
Genre........: Instrumental
Catnr........: MPM08
source.......: CDDA
rip.date.....: Mar-13-2006
str.date.....: Oct-25-2005
quality......: VBR/44,1Hz/Joint-Stereo
Url..........: www.progquebec.com
track title time
01. Le cri 1 01:16
02. Huard 1 05:00
03. Arrivee 05:09
04. La rage 03:41
05. Souffles d'ivoire et d'ecrin 02:14
06. Je suis le demon de ta vie 04:44
07. Jac 23 03:07
08. Undertow 05:44
09. L'envol du papillon 06:01
10. Mars 97 09:35
11. Streams 04:52
12. Sound Castle 04:29
13. Laval 03:10
14. Tango 2000 04:04
15. La molinie 04:32
16. Intro Huard 2 01:07
17. Huard 2 05:42
18. Le cri 2 04:43
Runtime 79:10 min
Size 109,0 MB
Release Notes:
Pianist and composer Jerome Langlois was one of the
driving forces behind the famed (at least in
Quebec) symphonic rock band Maneige in their early
years. Evidently, after leaving Maneige, Langlois
made his living at least partly in the realm of
soundtrack music. While I would expect that such
work would be somewhat mind-numbing, akin to being
an architect for a cookie-cutter suburban
development company, perhaps Langlois was composing
particularly interesting sorts of soundtracks,
because judging from Molignak, he certainly hasn't
lost any creative edge since the 1970s.
Which is not to say that the Maneige fan should
come in expecting something sounding much like that
band. No, this stuff is as akin to modern chamber
music as it is to progressive rock. Many of the 18
(mostly brief) pieces that make up this album are
very small-scale affairs; some are simply duets
between piano and clarinet, while others add a few
more timbral colors to the mix - although really,
piano and clarinet, and violin as well, really do
dominate the instrumental palette. The compositions
are mostly low-key, somewhat melancholy, and quite
accessibly melodic. There are moments where things
spin just a bit out of control to keep things
interesting, but for the most part Molignak is
quite consonant and beautiful.
About my only serious beef with this album is its
overly delicate use of drums and percussion. This
isn't really stuff that rocks hard enough to
generally need drums, and I could have done without
them, especially since where they are used, they
sound almost cheesily programmed. For instance, in
"Arrivee" the simple, bouncy drumming sounds like
an accompaniment to some kind of hackneyed
classical-music-for-rock-fans nonsense (you know,
the ones where a famous classical piece is set to a
Casio-generated "drumbeat"). Thankfully, this
problem isn't really predominant, although at times
I do feel the music in general leans dangerously
close to a certain new-agey aesthetic I don't tend
to like.
That said, there's always just enough of an edge,
and a kind of sadness, to these compositions that
keeps me interested. Fans of chamber-rock or
adventurous classically-oriented symphonic prog
could do much worse than to check this out. And did
I mention that there's a Conventum alumnus that
plays on this?
review by Brandon Wu