According to Avalanche Kaito drummer Benjamin Chaval, their music comes from "a sound, a sample, a desire, a feeling, or simply a lack of something." And their second album, Talitakum, is the result of a process, where "the whole" is, indeed, "expressed in every part," whatever the provenance. To begin with, the band gigged as much as they could in 2021, the guitarist Nicco Gitto having replaced bassist Arnaud Paquotte, their fiery, mercurial shows becoming "a laboratory" in their own right. 2023 brought two creative residencies; where eight new pieces were sketched out. In July of that year the "aural puzzle" was recorded by Vincent Poujol at the Gam studio in the Belgian Ardennes. In contrast to what went before, there were no plans to rely on live recording, and overdubs were used extensively. Even so, the tracks were still very fresh, sometimes even non-existent: the track "Tanvusse" began in the studio as a sample first heard in Niger. Other tracks like "Lago" were brought to rehearsal as thoughtforms in the singer Kaito Winse's head. Later, Benjamin Chaval assembled, arranged and further produced a body of work "that had to be tamed and reinvented" in concert. First impressions are driven by the different fusions thrown up between polyrhythms and polyphony: a notion of the constant reassembling of various musical building blocks. The opener "Borgo" has a dissonant tone to it. Two minutes in and it's by no means certain who will win out in this musical tug of war between voice, beat and instruments. All elements seem to burn themselves out eventually, living off the warmth of the energy created by their fight in a long meditative tail out. The tracks on the album are informed by Kaito Winse's voice and his use of a traditional flute and mouth bow. All three elements work, sometimes in tandem, as wider ciphers for communication, or "emotive" forms of mystification that inspire and unsettle. Throughout, Winse demonstrates what untapped powers listeners command, bodily; if only they knew how to use them. Alongside Winse, Nico Gitto (guitar) and Benjamin Chaval (drums, synths and electronics) work like mechanics, adding and updating elements to suit.
© 2021 bentcrayonrecords.com, llc.
