#miriodor

[kiwizoom]

Miriodor - Liquid Lands (2005)

[jgthirlwell]

playlist 06.02.17

Forest Swords Compassion (Ninja Tune) Cartoon Sortie (Cuneiform) Ragnar Grippe Sand (Dais reissue) Helm World In Action EP (Trilogy Tapes) Colin Stetson All This I Do For Glory (52Hz) Free Salamander Exhibit Undestroyed (Web Of Mimicry) Meredith Monk Piano Songs / Do You Be (ECM) Solution Solution (Catfish) Peter Wyngarde When Sex Leers Its Inquisitive Head (RPM) Michael Nyman A Zed and Two Noughts  (TER) Rabbit Rabbit (Carla Kihlstedt and Matthias Bossi) Rabbit Rabbit Radio Vols 1-3 (Rabbit Rabbit) Kenyon Hopkins Rooms/The Sound of New York (Righteous) Blossom Toes We Are Ever So Clean (Polydor) GAS Narkopop (Kompakt) Swingle Singers Jazz Sebastian Bach Vols 1 and 2 (Philips) Miriodor Signal 9 (Cuneiform)

[dustedmagazine]

Miriodor — Elements (Cuneiform)

Photo by Marc Tessier

What fun!! What a feast for the ears, a scintillatingly transparent trip through, around and atop the whims and whiles of that almost-always-too-serious labyrinth we might call neo-RIO! [that’s Rock in Opposition, for those, like your editor, not already clued in.] Canada’s Miriodor is certainly that but so much more than that, and if any further proof were needed, this tenth album brings it in technicolor!

It was more than tempting to begin this review with “This is far from grandparents’ prog!” It’s not quite true, or maybe it’s better to say that certain prog tributaries flow and pulse just below the surface of this constantly changing and endlessly amusing hipness. A bit of Gentle Giant’s rhythmic and contrapuntal “modernist” intrigue, some of Albert Marcœur’s or Matts/Morgan’s sonic zaniness, some Henry Cow or Samla Mammas Manna dissonance and more than a nod to the fabled Canterbury groups, even some raucousness a la early Present: all infuse this gorgeously recorded disc, but none of that really comes close to capturing Miriodor’s cheeky transparency. Dig into “Alambic”’s quasi-palindromic sonar-signal opening and closing to hear the kinds of wit brought to the table, but that, as the late and lamented Gilli Smyth has it, is only the beginning of the story. Aquatic synths spin a mystical narrative soon overtaken by stuttering pseudo-modernity in ricocheting  rhythmic timbre, as we also hear on the album’s final track. “Alambic” turns suddenly heavy and even dower until, at 2:05, the sun hockets its way through those clouds in a flurry of guitar and keys interplay. Speaking of keys, a bit of fun in felicitous retrograde begins at 3:55, opening the way to a vignette of airy groove with crystalline drumming to match. The sonar unifies and separates the various sections, but no amount of analysis does the fancy-tickling electronics any favors as they burble and warble along. 

The album is rife with those changes, as when the subterranean rumbles opening “Tour de Main” slam headlong into a sensually loping groove leading ultimately to some jerkily whole-tone goodness and a bit of bad-ass bottom-heavy orchestral exploration including some snarky industriality into the bargain. In fact, each sound the trio makes is a part of that counterpoint, a rapidly evolving syntax of phrases that may or may not coalesce into lines and paragraphs as they dance, drone or jingle their effortless way forward.

It could be the effortlessness that makes the subtle and not so subtle humor work. There is something so facile about these compositions, so inevitable and so right at every unpredictable turn, even when an anachronistic bluesy guitar solo  kicks in or when bits of found sound make their presences felt rather than simply heard. The musicianship is second to none, and that fact just adds to the album’s categorical difficulties. As with their prog/RIO colleagues, Miriodor offers up music of narrative grace and often heart-stopping beauty that always seems to cock just a bit of a snook at its multivalent points of origin, and so much the better. Prog needs more of this sort of thing!

Marc Medwin

[ruiraiox]

[cosmicunderground]

Visit Original Link

34+9 (43) Jongleries Élastique Miriodor

Feb, 1973 Cuneiform Records.

[cosmicunderground]

Visit Original Link

En Banzou Dans L’Bayou (Three Clowns) Jongleries Élastiques Miriodor 

Feb, 1996 Cuneiform Records

[glifosfera]

Portada de “Mekano”, disco de Miriodor (2001).

[burlveneer-music]

Miriodor - Signal 9 (Cuneiform Records)

"Metaphorically, we could say that Miriodor is a planet, with aliens communicating in their mysterious ways with planet Earth," says Miriodor's keyboardist, Pascal Globensky. In that sense, the long-lived Montreal band's ninth album, entitled Signal 9, could simply be considered the ninth set of musical messages from that exotic heavenly body.

The Miriodor discography has been building strength upon strength with each successive album. The band combines jazz, classical, rock, and international influences for an arresting, idiosyncratic sound that eludes description but remains immediately identifiable as Mirodor.

Miriodor: 

Bernard Falaise guitares / claviers / table tournante Pascal Globensky claviers / synths / piano Rémi Leclerc batterie / percussions / électroniques Nicolas Lessard basse / contrebasse / claviers

Music composed and played by Miriodor.

This album is dedicated to François Émond (1964-2016), founding member of Miriodor.