Oblique Sessions II

Richard Pinhas, moody, mesmerizing textural guitarist of Heldon fame, and Pascal Comelade, ivory tickling, toy instrument-tinkering Catalonian avant-gardist, revisit an earlier Comelade concept as a long-awaited opportunity to work together. On OBLIQUE SESSIONS II, the musicians take inspiration from Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt's "Oblique Strategies" cards, a deck of koans prized as an ideational springboard by creatively constipated artists. Comelade and Pinhas begin each original piece with a germ of an idea and no particular destination in mind, only to end upasomeplace else. Comelade plucks the central motif of "Wings on Rock" on toy guitar, underscored by Pinhas's menacing, sea-of-drone tone shifts. The breathtaking "Saint-Augustin Tombant Vers le Haut," improvised around an electronic theme by Flying Lizard David Cunningham, sees Comelade taking to electric organ and Pinhas filling spaces with curls of fizzy feedback. Pinhas dominates "K" and "De la Neurologie au Zig-Zag," sawing lushly effected riffs in counterpoint to Comelade's tremulous toy-piano chimes, and kindles the lovely, fuzz-choked Eno cover. Comelade ingeniously splits the circular, near-dissonant inventions of "Krafft-Ebbing et Les Coupeurs de Nattes" between toy and grand pianos, invoking Pinhas' flickering figure from betwixt these bounds. OBLIQUE SESSIONS II is a triumph of mood and melody over indeterminacy.