COCCOLITE - Echo (2021)

We already knew Timothée Robert (bass) and Nicolas Derand (keyboards) pillars of the group Antiloops around the flautist Ludivine Issambourg. With drummer Julien Sérié, they have also formed the Coccolite trio since their first LP "Bad Buzz" released last year where these bearded thirty-year-olds from Generation Y share the trends of their time by mixing jazz (they have already collaborated with David Linx, Médéric Collignon, Christophe Panzani or Manu Codjia) in electro and hip-hop, with a fairly rock sound in the lineage of artists like Louis Cole or Gogo Penguin. The technology of the machines for taking and processing sounds is the basis for their aesthetic direction, also using many inserts (we heard jumbled up on Bad Buzz the voices of Camus, the distorted one of Macron or the trumpet of Miles ...) . Like eternal teenagers, they have fun tinkering in all directions, even if it means sometimes losing meaning, and this new opus entitled Echo carrying eco-logical values ​​does not escape the faults of this current youth, both endearing and annoying. Powerful music that remains an indefinable UFO, muddled, lacking in unity and above all in cohesion, good thematic ideas are often too quickly curtailed and zapped to move on as is the case with several commas (in the bass groove yet quickly catchy) of a minute interspersed between the titles. The seal of modernity without doubt, even for a group which borrows its name from a fossil ...

Some featurings appear according to the songs, such as guitarist Pierre Danel (Kadinja, Alicia Keys, Mariah Carey ...) who grinds a very lively chorus on Proud too technoid intro piece as is also Cap Cap with his chopper syncopations a little painful while the theme finally given birth could be very catchy, and whose drums / synths parts clearly recall the frenzy of a Louis Cole. Among the other featurings, our regional trombonist Robinson Khoury shines on Milancolina with singer Miléna Fattah. Hope is one of the catchier titles with the insert of Martin Luther King's speech (I have a dream…) as well as C. Day with the very heady gimmick. Two titles deliberately evoke ecology, And there will be no more birds in the air, very (too) short, followed by Or there are no more animals in the sea which, between piano and jungle beat, reminds us of the Foehn Trio spirit (same generation, same format, same culture). And it is still our dear Lyon trio that we think - in addition technoid again - listening to Futon and Tatami who also eyeing Robert Glasper with in particular an interesting jazz piano. But the most obvious resemblance to Foehn lies in the closing title (the longest) with its bass synths, jungle drums and allegorical piano. The aptly named Entre deux eaux, perfectly summarizing the image of the promising Coccolite, who shows both his seductive abilities and, for the moment, the limits of his irresolution.