| Jazz moderne |
Raymond Roussel’s no one asked us yet: jazz, noise and memory, gloriously unravelled.
A band that borrows its name from Raymond Roussel (1877–1933) is making a promise. The French poet, novelist and playwright wrote in strange, rule-bound ways that fascinated the Surrealists, Oulipo and the nouveau roman, and his work still feels like a puzzle that refuses to be solved. The Vancouver trio that has taken his name keeps that promise on its debut, no one asked us yet: this is music that starts from things we recognise and tilts them, patiently and joyfully, until they look entirely new.
Guitarist and composer Eldritch Priest leads the group, with James Meger on bass and Brady Cranfield on drums and electronics. All three come from the thriving Canadian experimental scene, and you can hear that depth in the way they listen to each other. Priest’s guitar owes something to the glacial, open-air lyricism of Terje Rypdal and to Bill Frisell’s oblique, bent-note melodies, yet the trio pushes both references into rougher, stranger territory. Cranfield’s drums and electronics never simply keep time, they reshape the room around the others. Meger’s bass, bowed or plucked, gives the whole record its depth and its sense of gravity.
An opening that shakes you awake, then lets you wander: “somnambulator” lasts under three minutes and announces itself with a whammy-smeared guitar cry before dissolving into fuzzy murmurs as bass and drums prod at the edges. It is a brilliant curtain-raiser, and a slightly misleading one: the album that follows is far more spacious and exploratory than that first jolt suggests. The real centrepiece arrives next. The trio’s ten-minute reading of the folk ballad “black (is the colour of my true love’s hair)” takes its cue from the daring Patty Waters version rather than the brooding Nina Simone one, yet it finds its own path. Priest hints at the tune rather than stating it, circling the melody like a half-remembered dream over delayed drones, bowed bass and scattered percussion. What begins in near-ambient hush climbs, slowly and inexorably, into psychedelic improvisation. It is patient, spellbinding and utterly confident, and it may be the best thing here.
The title track packs a great deal into two and a half minutes: a slow, heavy foundation with each musician twitching nervously on top. “spur”, the first of Priest’s compositions, begins with a clean guitar tone and an acoustic rhythm section, then tips about a third of the way in into a vast, dub-flavoured wash of drums and guitar effects with a shoegaze glow, leaving Meger alone and exposed at the front. It is one of those moments where the floor simply drops away.
“multi-watt” and “derelict lounge” are the album’s abrasive explorations, full of phaser, delay, pitch-shifting, slack-string thwacks and electronic rumble: sound treated as something physical you can almost touch. At the other pole, “luster” sways on a delicate, fragile figure, and Meger’s lovely countermelodies shine precisely because the accompaniment is so sparse. “swerve” stretches past seven minutes with a mellower, more melodic spirit and gives the rhythm section room to breathe, without ever losing the creeping unease that runs through the whole record.
The other cover is Bill Evans’ “five”, and it is a joy. The trio turns it into a driving, almost motorik pulse, with free-time drums, a deliberately lurching bass walk and a guitar that glints with chorus, bends and whammy-bar sting. It sounds like a total demolition until you listen closely: Evans’ jumpy, never-quite-resolving theme was already off-balance, and the band simply leans into that restlessness. It is a respectful kind of vandalism, and an enormously smart one. The album ends with “the other side of the other side”, an improvised piece of spiralling, futuristic drones. It is the perfect closing image for a record that never settles for a single answer. The trio does not march towards ever greater noise, nor does it make peace with tradition at the end. Both impulses stay alive side by side, sometimes merging and sometimes brushing past each other, and that lack of resolution is exactly what keeps the music so alive.
Recorded and mixed by John Raham at Afterlife Studios, mastered by Murat Colak and released by Halocline Trance, no one asked us yet sounds as vivid as it is daring. It asks for attention and it repays it generously: every track adds something new, whether a flash of tenderness, a burst of fury or a moment of sheer strangeness. Raymond Roussel would surely have recognised the spirit of it, a band that takes familiar materials and discovers, by twisting them, what they were always capable of. None of us here at the Paris-Move editorial office expected an album like this, and we are very glad it’s such a thrilling, singular debut.
Frankie Pfeiffer
Editor in chief – PARIS-MOVE
PARIS-MOVE, October 22nd, 2026
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Tracklisting:
- somnambulator 02:57
- black (is the colour of my true love’s hair) 10:25
- no one asked us yet 02:31
- spur 06:38
- multi-watt 03:34
- five 05:07
- derelict lounge 03:59
- luster 04:27
- swerve 07:32
- the other side of the other side
Musicians :
Eldritch Priest: Guitar
James Meger: Bass
Brady Cranfield: Drums + Electronics
Credits:
Recorded and Mixed by John Raham at Afterlife Studios
Mastered by Murat Colak
Art Direction by Infinite Field
Design by Monica Zhang
© Halocline Trance 2026