"The Swiss percussionist Pierre Favre has been a key figure on the continental European improv and new music since the 60s. His recordings have sometimes foregrounded percussion, sometimes sax, sometimes his regular partnership with pianist Irène Schweizer. In this case it's a reeds, brass and rhythm section 10-piece playing a repertoire of sonorous, fast-changing works that suggest Carla Bley, free-improv or chanson, sometimes dinosaur-movie growls with a kind of acoustic-Bitches Brew groove beneath, sometimes Christmas carols. There isn't much soloing, though Favre has a couple of magnificent percussion displays, full of distantly echoing gong shimmers, throbbing bass-drum underpinnings and soft, pliable sounds. The melodic development is almost too busy (the pieces shift gear so often and change shape so wilfully that their serpentine intricacy borders on the relentless) but the lines are punched out with a robustness, the arrangements have a luxurious warmth for a composer with such experimental associations, and the drum solo One for Makaya is worth the set in itself." (J.Fordham-The Guardian)
http://www.pierrefavre.ch
