LE GRAND SBAM
Vaisseau Monde
(2019 - Dur et Doux - France)

https://legrandsbam.bandcamp.com/album/vaisseau-monde-2

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9haDiJx2rs

So much a delicious puzzle of quick flip, upside down, intricate bars of musical mayhem, in that beautifully demented formula, that the music both teases all the mind's sensibilities, forcing the listener to accept the impossible, and to burst with laughter because the compositions are so incredibly complex and unbelievable. An album that will make intellects lose their minds, and scientists wonder if the members are even real, or just gods from an alien world.

If one can imagine some exclusive brew of Loomings, Magma, Meredith Monk paired with Lene Lovich on acid, slithers of Paul Van Ostaven 'Music Hall' acrobatic vocal works, Ni, Poil, PinioL [which Le Grand Sbam has members Antoine Arnera (keyboards), Boris Cassone (bass), and Guilhem Meier (drums)], an even more bizarre early Gong, doses of Ruins, and that calibre of dart and dare music, then after your head stops spinning, you may have an idea of what this gathering of artists sound like. Including members Melissa Acchiardi (vibraphone and percussion) who comes from both bands Saint Sadrill and Hidden People (also on Dur et Doux label), and Jessica Martin Maresco (voice) from Pili Coit 'Pink Noise', plus the band Ni on ' Les Insurges de Romilly', and appears on a couple of Icsis albums. [Pili Coit also features Guilhem Meier on drums]. Marie Nachury (vocals) is from the avant-opera/punk/anything goes group Brice Et Sa Pute. Le Grand Sbam members are all over the fabulous Dur et Doux label and beyond, so if you know these artists and ensembles already, you can understand the plateau this new gathering operates on. They are a one of a kind avant-zeuhl,future progressive-shake things up in a power blender, unthinkable and free rein band, that not only defies a genre, but busts over any boundaries that have been set down so far.

The band put out a live version of this studio recording in 2014, which will knock you off your feet as you will not believe they do this stuff live. It raised eyebrows and brain cell count for those who paid attention. Folks that dreamed of a follow up, or a compact disc of the studio version, are now rewarded. The physical package comes with a gorgeous (art by Chloe Bonnard) gatefold digi-pak featuring special art on the disc as well. This is such an achievement of insanely great music that it is tough to describe properly. Mostly it is hard to give enough credit and accolades to the members. 'Vaisseaau Monde' (translated to Vessel World) is crazy good hyper chatter under and over speed and skid changes, with more twists and leaps than a family of frightened frogs escaping rapid predators on crack. A race and pursuit of frantic imagination and wicked scale. A MONUMENTAL RECOMMENDATION!

  ©Reviewed by Lee Henderson 10 - 16 - 2019