Thursday, September 13, 2012

Album Review: Malicorne: Concert exceptionnel aux Francofolies de la Rochelle (2011)

Here is a phenomenal group that most people in English speaking countries have never even heard of.

Briefly, Malicorne is a group behind frontman Gabriel Yacoub, and they had music that harkened back to a much older music going back deep in French history. They were pretty big in the seventies.

But they got too big - literally. The size of the lineup grew to 12, and that was too many members of a band. By this time, they had begun touring extensively, including to the United States and Canada (where they recorded En Public in 1978.

There were several line up changes, and the style of music began to change much more. With those changes came a change in the style of music. They modernized, and their sound suddenly was quite different. It sounded less heavily influenced by the past, and seemed almost to look towards the future.

It was not for everyone. My brother is also a big Malicorne fan, but he enjoys the older stuff, under the original lineup.

Now, personally, I very much enjoy their older stuff, under a new lineup. The music sounds different, but it's not for the worse. Gabriel Yacoub began to really stretch his talents out more, and used this newer, more modern music as his canvass. Two later albums (I think it was the last two albums for the group, period), have long ranked among my favorite albums, period. That would be Balancoire En Feu, and Les Cathedrales de l'Industrie.

Yet, many were disappointed with these albums. My brother certainly was not alone, and before too long, the group drifted apart and called it a day. I guess I can understand it, since they were doing more pop music by now, although I would argue that the band still retained a unique style, and did some interesting things. Still, many did not like the newer stuff, and so the band finally drifted apart.

Gabriel Yacoub embarked on a solo career, and performed Malicorne songs during his live shows. He now has had a long career, and much like wit Malicorne, he has traveled overseas at times. I barely missed seeing him in 2003, and still am bothered by it when I think about how close I was to seeing him. But alas....

In 2010, the original lineup of Malicorne reunited for one show only. But at least, they made an album, as well as a DVD, of this concert. That is the album that I am reviewing.

The crowd is really into it and energized right from the get go, and the band belts out one track after the other, encouraging crowd participation.

They sound unusually charged and high energy, which perhaps is to be expected by their first real band reunion in decades, after all. But it sounds good and crisp. That might be the obviously improved technology of this day, but they really do sound fired up, and the crowd is obviously enthused to be there.

It is a shame that most Americans never try to expose themselves to anything different than what they hear on the radio. I always wondered how that could be, and why music from other countries and quite done in other languages, no matter what the style, are lumped into one category in record stores. That category is "World Music". Some truly great stuff gets swept under the rug in this manner! Most Americans have never heard of perhaps the biggest music star outside of the English-speaking world, and that would be Johnny Hallyday, let alone some of the more obscure stuff like Malicorne.

Yes, of course the natural thing is to listen to what's available. Perhaps I listen to certain groups until I get sick of them. That is what happened with Led Zeppelin, as well as with The Who. It happened with the Stone Temple Pilots, and it seems to be happening with Pearl Jam, most recently. So, perhaps I am being a hypocrite in regard to listening to the same thing over and over. But modern radio has long promoted certain groups and/or songs, and that certainly has not changed in recent years. But really, how many times can you listen to Taylor Swift's "We are never getting back together", or Gotye's "Somebody that I used to know", before you get tired of it?

So, that said, if you read this review, and think you might enjoy this album, then I recommend going ahead and obtaining a copy. Take a chance with it, see if you might like it. Music is an international language after all, isn't it? Listen to the whole album, as well, because there is a long pause after what it appears to be the final track (I think it's track 15), and then, rather suddenly, you hear them performing much more recent work by Gabriel Yacoub (which I also think is brilliant). It starts with one track, Je resterai ici, which is credited to Yacoub, yet it was one of the tracks from the aforementioned Cathedrales album. The final two tracks after this are, indeed, exclusively Yacoub's solo works.

To me, this was a real gem of an album, and I am appreciate to my father for having gotten me a copy.

Unfortunately, I have not yet gotten the opportunity to see the DVD as of yet, and so have nothing to say about that, particularly.

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