Oiseau Murmure: Oiseau Murmure

Oiseau Murmure, the name of the band and the record, means, literally, whispering birds. It also describes birds in murmuration—the beautiful, elastic clouds in which birds whisper at dusk.  How fitting for such a beautiful work as this. 

Ouisea Murmure is a trio consisting of three very accomplished, very experienced musicians, taking some time away from their many individual projects to create something 'fragile and free,' composed in the moment.  

Nicolas Naudet plays clarinets, sometimes quite heavily processed. Benjamin Flament plays an extensively modified and enhanced drum kit. Theo Girard reassuringly plays straight ahead double bass. The record is structured with nine substantial tracks interspersed with nine very short tracks, only two of which are more than twenty seconds long. In a genre that can sometimes lean towards self-indulgence, one could be forgiven for wondering if this might be a record that was a lot more fun to make than to listen to.  

But nothing could be further from the truth.  "Escalator pour les Fonds Marin," the first of the substantial tracks, evokes the calmness of the seabed with gently rolling bass and deliciously watery percussion. Nourdet's clarinet sounds like distant whales calling. Goodness knows what Flament has under his mallets, but he makes acoustic percussion sound like something both electric and processed, in a really good way. 

"Sur le fil" starts with a long passage of unison bass and some sort of tuned percussion, which is not obviously in waltz time until the clarinet comes in and takes us straight to a closing time in a cafe somewhere in Paris, sometime between the wars. It is remarkably filmic. They could be making a fortune writing for Hollywood.

The trio plays with an easy familiarity that makes the balance they achieve seem effortless.  They play together beautifully, and when they take turns to improvise and embellish, it is less like them stepping into the spotlight to solo and more like our attention drifting, our focus now on this instrument, now on that. 

The writing is strong throughout, so much so that the only track which is not composed by the trio, Thelonious Monk's "Locomotive," blends in completely, which is high praise indeed. There are moments of lucid beauty (a particular interval in "Ne pas tourner en rond sans toi" is so sweet it aches) and moments of quiet ecstasy. "Unisson" opens with a looming bass figure that displays Girard's excellent time feel and delicate understatement, then gradually builds up pressure that, rather than exploding, dissipates as carefully as it arose. If you had to guess where the musicians came from, you might struggle. The music often sounds European,  but often not. There are influences from all over. 

So often, change without purpose or merit passes for innovation, while the real innovators are working quietly on the fringes.  Despite the odd arrangement of tracks and the slightly unusual instrumentation, this record just works. Nothing here is wasted. All the short tracks play a role, and none are there to make weight or fill a space. Artifice never obscures art. This is a quietly wonderful record that worms its way into your soul.