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"The United States is a myth, but somehow people manage to continue living day by day. It's a cult, and sometimes people break away". - McCloud Zicmuse.
Le Ton Mité - led by McCloud Zicmuse and Jonathan Burgun - features a revolving group of musicians performing short and curious compositions influenced by jazz, rock, folk, world and country music. "Fifty songs made to measure for a voyage to a place that once was but may no longer be." Tracklist: 1. Décalage Horaire 2. Oude Dworp 3. Cantina Mexicana 4. L'Orage Qui Nous Accueille 5. Class War 6. La Danse Carré 7. Did Pharoah Saunders Ever Come Back? 8. Sources Chaudes 9. Petit Jean 10. Anse De Liberté 11. Encounter Group (Ultimately We March!) 12. Petit Bis 13. Hooch Wine 14. Buffalo 15. Eureka! 16. Gaspillage 17. 5' = 45' 18. Indépendance 19. Paysages Éphémères 20. Al-BBQ-uerque Pizza 21. Antonio 22. Mystery Trail 23. Tamale Claus 24. El Camino Real 25. Un Litre De Salsa 26. Dans L'Ombre De Georgia O'Keefe 27. Holy Dirt 28. Space Needle 29. A Dog 30. Retour À La Double Cime 31. Olympia By Bus 32. Donne Moi Une Heure Dans Un Lac 33. Ghost Buildings Of A Past Life 34. Butoh Dancers 35. Al Gives Us A Ride 36. L'Esprit Viking 37. Micro-Capitalism (My Friends Are Hustlers) 38. Amtrak Cascades 39. Haceta Head 40. Mare Résiduelle 41. Pois Frais 42. Jamming Foiré 43. Crater Lake Majesty 44. Les Ricocheteurs 45. An Awkward Moment 46. One Minute Later 47. Last Of The Boxes 48. Hommeling 49. There Was A Dome Of Awesome But Now It's Gone 50. Passé Composé Futur Conditionnel LE TON MITÉ is a musical cooperative that revolves around the compositions of itinerant musician, instrument maker and fine artist McCloud Zicmuse, an American expatriate in permanent residence in Brussels. Having left the United States in the mid-noughties on a European sojourn that never ended, McCloud wound up in the Belgian capital in the fall of 2008. Half a decade on, a time in which he has embedded himself in European life via puppet shows, archery guilds, folkloric events, theatre projects and a catalogue of idiosyncratic solo and group works (perhaps most recognisably the 2011 Hoquets album on Crammed Discs called 'Belgotronics'), McCloud returned to the States, to revisit places he had not seen, in some cases, for 15 years. "Passé Composé Futur Conditionnel" is the stunningly realised soundtrack to this voyage. A finely woven double album patchwork of 50 songs, in its 67 minutes it absorbs a lifetime's worth of landscapes, reflections, encounters, anecdotes and movements. In addition to a core group of Belgian master musicians, a number of songs feature the fruitful intervention of Deerhoof's John Dieterich as well as a keyboard cameo from Heather Trost (A Hawk and A Hacksaw), with the resolutely pop sound of the LTM group rendered dynamic by infusions of jazz, baroque, folk & R'n'B. Thus the album takes endless playful musical diversions in its bittersweet stride, including deep-fried protest soul ('Class War'), Seattle-homaging alt.rock joy (Space Needle), spectral synth balladry ('Mystery Trail') and micro-bursts of tumbling free jazz ('Gaspillage'). McCloud is your navigator throughout: showman, troubadour, puppeteer, sage...sometimes everything at once. On one level a joyous testament to the fast-evaporating wonders of cultural pluralism and roving human spirit, "Passé Composé Futur Conditionnel" is, at heart, a swan song to McCloud's motherland, a place that never will exist again. It is the battle cry against nostalgia, and the fruit of years of work from a true nomad artist of our culturally flatlined times, the liberation of knowing that home is no longer a place, but a state of mind. "Passé Composé Futur Conditionnel" finds its perfect home on Made to Measure, the mythical release series by Belgian label Crammed Discs that has brought us music by the likes of Fred Frith, Aksak Maboul, John Lurie and Hector Zazou among many others in its fertile, 30 year + past. |
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