On occasion of their recent touring together, both Dale Cooper Quartet & the Dictaphones and Witxes each contribute a 20 minute composition, each neatly filling a side of the vinyl version of “SPLIT“ .
There is a link between the pieces, however: Dale Cooper Quartet’s piece “Le Strategie St. Frusquin” was inspired by parts of Witxes’ “The Apparel” (from his album “A Fabric Of Beliefs”). Conversely, Witxes’ piece “Pisces Analogue” is based on Dale Cooper Quartet’s “Noirrain Quinquet” (from “Quatorze Pièces de Menace”).
What both pieces also have in common is the beautiful flow of narrative storytelling – an almost cinematic sequence of ‘tension and release’.
Named after Twin Peaks’ FBI Special Agent Dale Bartholomew Cooper, the Dale Cooper Quartet performs ‘jazz’ of the darkest kind.
“Ambient soundscapes, lazy jazz rhythms, drone and distortion guitars and a deep saxophone breath.”
The piece starts with an almost frightening atmosphere, only to come at ease somewhat in the second half with Ronan Mac Erlaine’s crooning vocals. “A grainy and blissful track that resembles music coming through of a 50’s radio speaker, letting dark jazz flooding the room.
But don’t let the calm ending deceive you..
If you may have dozed off a but at the end of “Le Strategie St. Frusquin”, you will be rudely awakened by the explosive start of “Pisces Analogue”.
Witxes (Maxime Vavasseur) has taken fragments of the original track and turned it into five movents that “take a look at some of its nooks, focus on a few of its endless micro-universes and jump from one to another in a flash.”
DALE COOPER & DICTAPHONES / WITXES – SPLIT (fragments)