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.

“Maher Shalal Hash Baz is the embodiment of a plunderer … [they] bridge the independent movements of free-jazz, psychedelics and rock with the dynamics of East and West … a free-wheeling culture clash without borders.” - Alarm Magazine