CHROMB! makes its own music, preferring continuous renewal to stabilizing labelling; the quartet’s fuel is a mixture of inventiveness and generosity, which has been spreading over the last ten years on a variety of stages, from international festivals to places of underground culture. CHROMB! is a member of Dur et Doux, a collective/label dedicated to unclassifiable music based in Lyon.
CHROMB!’s discography shows its openness: while album I (2012) laid the supersonic foundations of the band through open and collective writing, its successor II (2014) digested the dense and electric energy of intensive touring. Next comes 1000 (2016), a dense and labyrinthine album where hyper-writing and vocal polyphonies are integrated into the band’s favourite ingredients. Finally, Le Livre Des Merveilles (2020), echoes the travel stories of Gervais de Tilbury (1150-1218): there are songs that tell, and instrumental pieces that evoke, with a slowness and sound places that the band had never visited before. Alongside the concerts and records, the band will also be rubbing shoulders with the live drawing concert in the company of Benjamin Flao from 2015 to 2018.
In 2019, CHROMB! launched into the writing of a new repertoire populated by synthetic insects and traversed by an insane energy: the writing leaves as much room for irresistible riffs for the body as it does for the slow development of sound masses that speak to the skull, stealing the energies of the freest music, whether experimental or danceable.
Listen to the track ‘Le fleuve Brison’ from the forthcoming album at
https://chromb.bandcamp.com/track/le-fleuve-brison
At the time of civilisation collapse, only the bold pave the way. Back to basics. Let us give CHROMB! a certain sense of responsibility : through this fourth album, entitled Le Livre Des Merveilles, the quartet appears in a new light. Washed of their sins.
Off with the worn out fusion-prog, the ten notes per second that were the trademark of the Lyon-based musicians, now the approach is radical and the demonstrative varnish fades away in favour of “knowledge”. This same «knowledge» the XIIIth century cleric and knight Gervais de Tilbury praised in his Livre Des Merveilles which the band draws his inspiration from, even borrowing entire dizzying fragments.
This is how CHROMB!’s heroic gest unfolds! The four tracks, inspired by a fantasized mythology that J.L. Borges would not have disavowed, let eventually the light come through… Between medievalism and futurism, the lyrics in French, make use of playful hermeticism and smash the rules to pieces. Less acidic, more structured, the style asserts itself, more and more epic as it is ornament-less. Labyrinthine tales with sinuous vocal parts here, a noisy symphony there: with Le Livre Des Merveilles, the incredible gives way to the fabulous… Then, in the distance, the truth bursts out.
Tracklist
1. Le Livre Des Merveilles
2. Le Fleuve Brison
3. Les Chevaliers Qui Apparaissent
4. La Souvenance D’Achille
Release Date: 27/03/2020
Live Dates
13.02 LYON, Périscope, FR
18.02 TORINO, Blah Bla, IT
19.02 LUZERN, Industriestrasse, CH
20.02 MACON, Cavazik, FR nt
21.02 ST IMIER, Espace Noir, CH
26.03 MULHOUSE, Ödl , FR
27.03 PLAUEN, Alte Kaffeerösterei, DE
28.03 BERLIN, Hintertreffen festival, DE
29.03 WURZBURG, Immerhin, DE
03.04 AMBIERLE, La Distillerie, FR
09.04 REILLANNE, Café du cours, FR
10.04 TOULOUSE, Le Taquin, FR
11.04 PAU, Le Cendar, FR
12.04 MONTOISON, L’Hicam, FR
28.05 LA GUIERCHE, La Coop, FR
29.05 STE LUMINE LES CLISSONS, Smöll Festival, FR
09.10 HRADEC KRALOVE, Jazz goes to town, CZ
Links:
https://facebook.com/madamechromb
https://chromb.bandcamp.com
