On the program this week, Megaphenix of the French, and an audio and video documentary on the studio designed by the guitar hero.
Mustang, Megaphenix
On its fifth album in a fifteen-year career, the Mustang group has chosen to reinvent itself. The group has a new drummer in the person of Nicolas Musset, collaborator of Louise Attaque, Izia and Thomas Azier, also director of the album that concerns us here, Megaphenix. After the solo break of the singer and songwriter of the group Jean Felzine, it is pleasing to hear this formation – one of the most underestimated in our musical landscape – return with such a strong album. As Felzine sings in the very good song The door to the nose “you’re too varied or you’re too special”, Mustang escapes the hasty classifications currently in force by decision-makers. After having financed the album themselves, the three musicians signed with the Vietnam label of Franck Annese, press man and music enthusiast.
Megaphenix easily establishes itself as the group’s best album since its first, A 71, released when the trio had just arrived in their native Clermont-Ferrand. Harmoniously alternating rock pieces and successful ballads, Megaphenix is the most balanced of the records of this unclassifiable group. Jean Felzine, quickly noticed with the tour de force of Trousers, his first notable song, remains one of the most inspired lyricists on the scene, with characteristic humor and ferocity. We particularly appreciate the texts of The door to the nose and of French song, particularly caustic. But we also really like the instrumental track Tyrain, amen, which benefits from the participation of Thomas de Pourquery on sax. Another guest, Arthur Teboul from Feu!Chatterton sur Aéroport.
Jimi Hendrix, Electric Lady Studio : A Jimi Hendrix Vision
We have learned to be wary of Jimi Hendrix’s posthumous albums, the number of which far exceeds that of the records released during the lifetime of this rock genius who died in September 1970. This new project is on a different scale. It is based around a very complete documentary devoted to the creation of the Electric Lady studio, designed by Hendrix at the end of his life. Inaugurated two months before his death, this underground space located in the heart of Greenwich Village, New York. It was there, without any constraints of time or money, that the singer-guitarist recorded hours of music in 1970, before going on tour to earn the money which would be used to finance the progress of the work. On this 3 CD or 5LP box set with a DVD we hear alternative versions of titles spread across the first posthumous albums of the man who was much more than a guitar hero. With Billy Cox on bass and Mitch Mitchell on drums, Hendrix had struck a powerful balance between the Experience records and the Band of Gypsys experience. In the process, he invented a kind of funk rock which flourished after his death. Just as the studio he had imagined for himself prospered and became a temple of rock from the 1970s until today.
