Rhun - Tozzos CD
SKU
BFL 18
Captain Flapattak : drums & vocals
Retsim Käh : bass & vocals
Charlotte Pace : violin
Chfab Kaouenn : keyboards & vocals
Jean Bonëth : alto & baritone saxophones
Ludal Le Chacal : keyboards & lead vocals
Tozzos is the third album from this very good, French zeuhl/avant-progressive group who first came to our attention with their release on AltrOck.
“Rhùn, a band from France, released their album "Tozïh" in 2023, and presented an excellent combination of avant-garde, jazz, and Zehul. Now they are releasing their new album which was originally supposed to come out with "Tozïh" but the band decided to make "Tozzos" a separate musical story. The dark dialogues of the instruments are completely superb and fit sublimely into a sound box. The game of genres and their overall implementation with vocals that come from many musical layers make the situations on this album more imaginative. Many feasts dance in the air and a greater movement of the rhythm ushers in their great jazz-rock skills.
These four tracks fully demonstrate the energy and immense technique in a sort of solemn rite of ecstatic elevation. It is safe to say that the band defines the splendid epic sound and that this work represents an admirable example of courage and genius applied to landscapes that are as strange and complex as they are innovative, experimental, and beautifully layered. Here the atmosphere becomes decidedly darker and more dramatic, ghostly keyboards, choirs and laments come out of the speakers and they are the main representative and the fundamental trait of a very "visual" piece that projects the mind into the deepest circle of hypnotic and "dangerous" musical expression.
The band also has the power to create a certain repetitiveness that creates an inferior tension in the overall compositional story. In the first composition "Xïem", the musicians create a hallucinatory puzzle in which the saxophones and keyboards first insinuate themselves with threatening noises and hisses between the complex instrumental breaks typical of the group, that hypnotic feeling continues in an interesting implementation of a psychedelic approach, but then a kind of progressive crescendo takes over and culminates with the avant-garde and fusion duel, all aimed at presenting their technical expertise as a group of refined and imaginative musicians.
It is complex music, sparkling with lights and colors like a crystal, which stimulates the neurons and often stuns them but also has a sufficient dose of calming phases, which is shown at the beginning of the ten-minute "Henc", which gives life to ethereal, poetic melodies, and give a touch of liveliness and light-heartedness before reaching an instrumental section full of emotions, which is technical and beautiful at the same time, with a lot of psychedelic suggestions. Changes in the atmosphere are evident, and "Henc" fantastically brings melodic art, as well as eclectic dissonances that sweep away innocent parts that preceded it. Here, the band is experimenting with sound at its roots, as if to underline the sense of chaos and complexity from which it arises. The music overall is strongly avant- garde and establishes the best of "free" jazz and fusion-style progressives that gradually become the real noise of the soul, contrasted with the intimate and solitary melancholic parts. The dramatic psychedelia transports us to corners of the mind never explored, in a landscape made of reverberations and unpleasant background noises, which also find more decisive and psychotic counterparts. There is a constant aura of mystique implemented in this work, and this album represents an excellent continuation of the band's career.”