Utopiya

Gatefold double LP version; pressed on marbled vinyl; includes download code. Utopiya not only continues Oiseaux-Tempete's first album (SR 381 CD/LP); it also extends it. The travels move this time to Istanbul and Sicily, providing the food for it's urgent energy and indomitable drive. While the structures still hint at moments of post-rock, they go further now, almost into the area of free-jazz yet without losing a directness rooted in punk (highlighted perhaps by the presence of G. W. Sok from The Ex). In addition, the bass clarinet of Gareth Davis references both the roughest of experiments of Akosh Szelevenyi and The Stooges' Fun House. There are, so the story goes, sea birds that reveal themselves only at times of approaching storms. This story though, is a little more complicated. For some, the pipers riding the deluge, yet for the mariner the prophets in the lingering final moments of calm. Ultimately, are they the creator or created if the existence of one requires the other? It is this Mediterranean Sea that Oiseaux-Tempete chose to roam. More or less anchored in Paris, Oiseaux-Tempete is the result of the meeting between Frederic D. Oberland and Stephane Pigneul (members of both Farewell Poetry and Le Reveil Des Tropiques) and Ben McConnell (Beach House, Marissa Nadler). For Utopiya?, the group is expanded with the addition of bass clarinet virtuoso Gareth Davis. File under experimental, stoner, post-rock, ambient, free music.