UK based artist Antoine Fafard is out with the album “Quadra Spherium”, and progressive rock is the style explored on this production. This is a full on instrumental affair, and one that dips its toes rather solidly into the jazz and jazzrock landscape. The saxophone is the main lead instrument here, with surging, emotional and atmospheric laden lead sections coming and going, with occasional dips into a tone and mode of delivery that gives me associations to legendary Norwegian artist Jan Garbarek. The guitars are used in a few different manners here, from elegant and careful reverberating displays and as a supplier of careful notes and floating textures but also to create quirkier details with more of a Frippian tendency to them. With a nice little flirt with a guitar style and sound on the opening cut ‘The Fifth Damnation’ that to my mind at least sounds very much like something Alex Lifeson could have had a hand in. We also get a little bit of a flirt with the Latin jazz tradition along the way, although in this instance that is very much an exception in terms of style, sound and specific orientation. With an excellent mix and production present, this album should be a nice treat to those who love and treasure instrumental jazzrock where the saxophone is the dominant lead instrument and where the compositions can be quirky and intricate as well as careful and atmospheric laden.
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