(Avant-Garde Jazz, Free Improvisation) The Fish (Jean-Luc Guionnet, Benjamin Duboc, Edward Perraud) - Moon Fish - 2012, WEB, FLAC (tracks), lossless

If you identify alto saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet and drummer Edward Pérraud with the minimal and abstract free improvisation of the French band Hubbub, another project with their participation, you’ll be astonished with the hard driving, muscular music played by The Fish. Instead of textures and odd sounds only obtained by using extended instrumental techniques, we find in “Moon Fish” the broken phrasing and the polyrhythmic balance which defines Albert Ayler’s influence on the present day creative jazz. Not considering themselves (only double bassist Benjamin Duboc is more close to that legacy) to be jazz musicians, the members of this trio present us a kind of hyper-realistic creation: a more real version of free jazz than the “new thing” itself. Every time we sense that this is free jazz executed by outsiders, but the results couldn’t seem more authentic – and that’s the reason for the delicious strangeness of this proposal. It’s like free jazz is being reinvented…

Jean-Luc Guionnet - alto sax
Benjamin Duboc - bass
Edward Perraud - drums