SYLVAIN CHAUVEAU レコード& CD

Review: As you might expect, there are a number of thoughtful themes explored on French composer Sylvain Chauveau's latest album, "Life Without Machines". Chauveau has framed it as a meditation on humanity's reliance on machinery and whether that's sustainable - a potent point in the era of COVID-19 - though the accompanying press release also states that each of the album's short compositions used "Barnett Newman's 'The Stations of The Cross' series of abstract paintings as a visual score". Regardless, what's offered up is haunting, sparse and profoundly moving: a succession of solo piano pieces performed by French pianist Melaine Dalibert that are variously haunting, bittersweet, beautiful and surprisingly sorrowful.

Review: Sylvain Chauveau's "Nuage" collects his recent scores for two films by Sebastian Betbeder. This sees the composer returning to the sound he explored so successfully on FatCat's "Un Autre Decembre". With a hand-picked group of players on piano, viola and violin, and with Sylvain himself on electric guitar, the music roots itself in the traditions of great film scoring.