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The name Maher Shalal Hash Baz comes from The Book of Isaiah,
meaning “plunder quickly.” Tori Kudo, their conductor and
band leader, fuses stray elements of pop, folk, jazz and
experimental music into pieces of candid musical gestures.
C’est La Dernière Chanson [KLP210] is compact and richly
melodic; forgotten melodies played with a fragile trust.
C’est La Dernière Chanson is a double album of songs
composed by Kudo between 2005-2007. For the recordings,
Kudo assembled six musicians from Japan and bunkered down
for six days in St. Pierre-Eglise, France to record and rehearse
before playing an Atagatomuzi-K event in Cherbourg.
In addition to these mysterious band members Kudo also
included a handful of local French musicians. The output from
these sessions was one of the most prolific recordings done by
Maher Shalal Hash Baz; more than 200 songs were recorded and
177 are presented on Chanson, Kudo’s second release on K.
Bassoon, guitar, drums, trumpet, trombone, clarinet, glass
percussion, organ, rocks and sticks are expanded by a
sophisticated counter-repetition technique into an extensive
tonal range of colors; the effect is at turns serene, dissonant,
enchanting, crisp, spacious and maddeningly catchy. The
future of music on Planet Earth. Listen closely, please.
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