Nicholas Godin - Contrepoint
6/10
After twenty years of touring and recording as one half of Air, Nicolas Godin now plunders the back catalogue of a certain Johann Sebastian Bach in search of solo inspiration. The result is Contrepoint, a hotch-potch collection of experimentation using Bach's polyphonic texturing as a launch-pad for some Gallic whimsy.
Beginning with Orca, a lively blend of bad-ass baroque that starts with flute-like purity before crashing into discordant strumming and distorted synths, we are then taken on an idiosyncratic voyage that includes cinematic homage and narrative as well as melodic and harmonic exploration. It concludes with the Edward Scissorhands inspired Elfe Man, which doubles as tribute to American movie composer Danny Elfman. Along the way Glenn becomes a reverential tribute to legendary pianist Glenn Gould, and Quei Due references an obscure 1935 Italian film. With each excursion it is the Bach original that provides the initial ride and subsequent jump-off point for Godin's imagination and lateral diversion.
Contrepoint is clearly an intelligent and technical work and, individually, each track contains a landscape of contrasts and flowing development. Musicologists may delight in de-constructing and analysing Godin's process but the album as a whole struggles to bind cohesively. Without obvious purpose and order it lurches instead towards a jumbled miscellany of distinctly separate parts.
Best digested in bite-sized pieces?
6/10
