Aneris
After having played one, just one song on a session in a club in the Netherlands, the French drumpoet Toma Gouband invited bassplayer Brice Soniano and Harmen to tour in France. For Harmen this tour became one of the most important events in his development as a musician and as a human being. This tour took place in 2000.
For some years the band operated under the name Par 4 Chemins, later this changed into Aneris.
During the last years Aneris invited some of the greatest contemporary musicians from Europe to perform and to record, like the American sax- and clarinetgiant Michael Moore, the unbelievable flute player Magic Malik and the Scandinavian hero Fredrik Ljungkvist on clarinet and sax.
Harmen chose the name Aneris, because of the symbolic reference of this name and its mirror. Aneris is the goddes of order and non-being, comparable with Harmonia. The mirror Sirena refers to the Greek mythology, in which the Sirenes, very beautiful goddesses, sing such beautiful songs, that the travellers passing their island cannot resist the attraction, and head for the source of this devine music. The tragic result is that the travellers are killed by the Sirenes after they suffer shipwreck; the Sirenes even suck out their vitality... good Lord!
"I guess it's not necessairy to mention that this is not our primary goal when we perform. So there's no need to be prepared like Odysseus, in case you want to attend one of our concerts, so... no beeswax in the ears please!"
www.par4chemins.com
www.myspace.com/fredrikljungkvist
www.myspace.com/magicmalikorchestra
www.ramboyrecordings.com
Discography
Par 4 Chemins, Cristal Records / Abeille Distribution (2005)
Harmen Fraanje - Piano
Brice Soniano - Bass
Toma Gouband - Drums
1 R D R, Cristal Records / Abeille Distribution (2007)
Magic Malik - Flute & vocals
Harmen Fraanje - Piano
Brice Soniano - Bass
Toma Gouband - Drums & cymbow
1 R D R
The story of this project starts right before the first blow, in the gesture coming from an instinct, an intention to reveal with accuracy, to modestly celebrate the beauty of a moment, the happiness of an instant (...) infinite, eternal, just passing by, coloring its path the way it has been colored itself: we are definitely talking about improvised music. The original recording session has offered about 10 hours of music, telling hundreds of stories, hundreds of travels, hundreds of wanderings which had to be scanned, carved all along a year, giving some time to Time so that it could bring to light (clarify) a crossing, a story to tell, an air to sing, an air among the airs (1RDR)... The other composition, after the one of the Instant, starts there. Trying, taking away, cutting, combining, assembling... eventually selecting 7 movements, connected in a cycle from which the ending can only be a beginning.
AN AIR FROM THE AIR: The overture "1RR" (an air wanders) gives the tuning tone to the rest of the disc. Its meditative character offers the possibility to dive in the heart of the melodic and harmonic universe of the Cymbow (a single bowed cymbal), and to wander together with an air rubbing himself with other airs in a celestial dance. The second movement seems to be the threshold of the story: the first airs are taking place, sometimes the contrabass navigates between the chords of the piano, sometimes it borrows the counter-chant of the cymbow. Technically, this piece has been recorded during the microphones tests before the first hour of the first day of studio. Punctuated by a bleep, comes the riddle. Time waits, holds on, spirals until the detection of a new planet... there, like on Earth, things survey from a source to the sea, rise from the earth to the sky, remembering the opposite direction. This 4th movement brings into scene a confrontation to the material, giving birth to an unexpected song, unlikely, on the breach...
A DESERT AIR: The following 2 miniatures are associated by tone symmetry. "Nuit de lustre" sings the time of a contemplative relaxation, a shimmering unison remembering Ligeti's "Lux Aeterna", when a lower air vibrates, hopes, bows are rubbing, holding back, and the energy gets free... The final is a 3 part movement, "1RDR" opens as a firework : now is the time to taking off and the posture becomes like the one of the archer [...] The rolls announce something else than the ending... a silent area, a resonance mount. Then, in the background of nocturnal tropical insects and below a full moon, the BAKA pygmies, true inhabitants of planet Earth, sing and dance, in the distance, the entrance of the party, the invitation to the dance, as if to celebrate their one more day' survival.
DANS L' AIR DU TEMPS: A jazz album by essence, not by aestheticism, true intimate dialogue, tribute to silence and poetry, far for the theme/solo/theme scheme, the voices are enchanting, meeting together, being swapped with each other, murmuring while the rhythm is whispered more than beaten, getting closer to one's own heartbeat. This music, improvised, manifests by its nature an air du temps in the same time as a ceaseless gesture. Aestheticism surrenders to vibration. Only one story among a thousand is being told and the colors it conveys suggest a thousand of images. No answer is given, but the BAKA sang, sing, and will sing as long as the forest will be. The track 7, recorded during a trip to Akon Etyé, little camp of BAKA pygmies living in the south part of Cameroon gives witness of it. We experienced there a time all different than the one we knew here. Also, no mark of time can be found on the disc, in order to live open the perception to each listener. If our music is deeply influenced by their, we decided to pay homage to them by letting them sing, in mirror of the disc, in the far, with this tremendous respect and admiration that we have toward them.
"...djoko/thank you..."
In the end, this disc has to be listened as a story, a trip, an impression. The scope at the beginning offers the air in freewheel, the yarn unrolling until the beginning, going back to the end... the air desert, threshold to the imaginary. inviting you to a 41'51'' trip. We wish you will enjoy the music
1 R D R
La dernière heure de la première minute passa comme une seconde fois
L'heure, l'heure tournait, tournait vers l'heure et ainsi de fuite, sans suite.
Assis sur un rocher émergeant O heures d'or, il s'endormit.
Nuit de lustre, les deserts s'enchaînent mais l'étoile ne bouge.
Il R un peu, n'est-ce qu'un rêve?
S'éloignant de sa maison il pleure la fleur de son jardin.
là-bas des R chantent aux oreilles des oreilles de ne pas partir.
((: Petit être d'R peut être Petit R d'être peut être :))
Cielant sur un rocher émergeant des hauts R
Il court vR son cri, se souvient de demain.
Assis sur un soleil, il regarde la mR,
une lune en son sourire et quelques étoiles orangées, mentholées.
Des R d'R, aurore O heures d'or,
Un peu oiseau à ses heures oisives,
1R des R...promène...au pas à passe...é...les pétales que le vent...vole (d'/l') 1R des R...(l')une R.
Reviews
Aneris met Michael Moore in het Bimhuis
Harmen Fraanje presenteerde zijn nieuwe kwartet Aneris dat schitterde in een
aaneengesloten improvisatie, waarbij je geen moment aan illustere voorgangers dacht.
Spontaan opkomende melodie en ritme kronkelden op telkens andere manier om elkaar heen, met een natuurlijk aanzwellende en wegebbende intensiteit. De bijzondere klankkleur was vooral te danken aan het sfeervolle slagwerk van Fransman Toma Gouband, die met creativiteit en precisie de stroom aanstuurde; soms met een strijkstok langs een bekken, of één enkele maraca, alles subtiel en volmaakt verweven met de continu varierende baslijnen van landgenoot Brice Soniano. Niemans domineerde, er werd gezamenlijk gebouwd aan ambient-achtige klanklandschappem. verschuivende ritmische patronen als die in de gamelan, swing en abstractie. Muziek zonder voor- of achtergrond, een groep als organisme. Die zich natuurlijk gelukkig mag prijzen met de deelname van Michael Moore, al vele jaren een van de meest inventieve en lyrische rietblazers in de jazz, met een breed palet. Zijn klarinet is even sonoor als wendbaar, en op altsax kan hij zo zoet als een dwarsfluit klinken, maar ook kwaken als een boze Donald Duck..
Frank van Herk - De Volkskrant 27 Februari 2007
Presse à propos de 1 R D R (nov 2007)
Pour fêter la sortie de leur premier album "1RDR" sur le label Cristal Records, le trio Par 4 chemins (Harmen Fraanje (piano), Brice Soniano (contrebasse) et Toma Gouband (batterie/percussions)) et Magic Malik (flûte), se sont retrouvés sur la scène du Studio de l'Ermitage pour un concert d'une formidable intensité. Au cours de deux sets intemporels, cet incroyable carré d'artisans du son nous a donné à partager un univers régi par les lois de la poésie sonore. Tout en précision, en écoute silencieuse, les nappes s'étirent, l'archet frotte la cymbale, la contrebasse sautille, le piano résonne des rires de ses cordes frappées et le chant de la flûte finit de nous conduire vers un état d'éveil tel que l'auditeur semble faire corps avec le souffle de la musique... Entre méditation et vibration, ce voyage en deux parties nous a littéralement transporté dans un imaginaire d'une éblouissante beauté. Igor Juget www.sextant-revue.fr
..."De sons renvoyés jusqu'à l'infini en couleurs sonores, d'éclats en vibrations, mélodies en gouttes de temps, résonances et échos, ces quatre acolytes produisent un jazz hors de tout formalisme, radicalement novateur. Profondément noir et lumineux, l'étrange s'écoute et inspire à la poésie, à la pensée."
Extrait de la chronique parue dans la Tribune - 17 janvier 2008
..."une musique tout en étirement, en nappes, en bruine, en gouttes de sons, où l'archet sur la cymbale peut prédominer. ?Improvisation radicale et sans triche."
Extrait de la chronique de Franck Bergerot - Jazz Magazine - décembre 2007
..."Cet album alterne l'ultraviolent, l'opaque, le sombre et la poésie, la lumière comme dans ...se souvient de demain. Toute la question d'esthétisme ou de narcissisme est abandonnée au profit d'une musique qui ne s'apparente à rien, mais qui se revendique d'un jazz sans thème et sans solo, peut être même du reflet de la société avec toute son horreur et ces quelques espaces de profonde poésie. Pour curieux insatiables."
Extrait de la chronique de Jean-Baptiste Méchernane - Pianiste - décembre 2007
