François Houle Archive

Gordon Grdina, François Houle, Benoît Delbecq and Kenton Loewen – Ghost Lights – Songlines

by Audiophile Audition | Dec 1, 2017 | Jazz CD Reviews

Gordon Grdina, François Houle, Benoît Delbecq and Kenton Loewen – Ghost Lights [TrackList follows] – Songlines, SGL 1621-2 70:45 [6/9/17] ****: Avant jazz with a subtle and nuanced quality. (Benoît Delbecq – piano, bass station; François Houle – clarinet, electronics, loops; Gordon Grdina – guitar, electronics; Kenton Loewen – drums, percussion) When the term ‘avant jazz’ is used, some listeners conjure music with severity that is non-melodic, or difficulty mixed with discordance. But the 70-minute quartet album, Ghost Lights, is different. There is a delicate texture throughout the seven lengthy pieces composed or fully improvised by Benoît Delbecq (piano, bass station), François Houle (clarinet, electronics, loops), Gordon Grdina (guitar, electronics) and Kenton Loewen (drums, percussion). Grdina is known for a harsher, harder guitar style on previous outings, so Grdina fans might be surprised on his quieter quality throughout Ghost Lights. Delbecq concisely describes this material, “Its music with slow motion.” Gordon Grdina Ghost Lights was taped in summer, 2016 at Afterlife studios in Vancouver, Canada but has a live ambiance and the engineering has a warm, stage-like attribute. You can hear how the foursome flows with each moment and proceeds from one creative state to the next creative phase. There […]