Dionne Bregént-... Et Le 3e Jour,LP,1976,Canada

D-B’s first album is one of the most amazing album coming out of Quebec (if you are familiar with La Belle Province’s 70’s progressive scene, that is) and the least you can say is that they were unique in not only Canada, but in the whole of the New World. The collab of Vincent Dionne (an amazingly descriptive - musically speaking – percussionist that even created his own instrument, the Madriphone) and Michel Georges Brégent (a keyboardist having recorded with his brother an album or two with his brother before and a few solo after this duo) is miraculous in the superb results this album gives. The first side of this thematic album (great artwork, BTW) is very close to a cross of TD’s best symphonic works (from Ricochet to Force Majeure) and TD’s earlier Pink-era albums (Zeit) to Kraftwerk Man-Machine-styled minimalism, yet in many cases, D-B is very much superior to those. Do this sound incredibly good? You betcha!!! It even trounces some of the genre’s best works, slapping most of Krautrock silly for not coming up with such evident, implacable and astounding (yet so simple) music. The first side of the vinyl is made of the self-titled suite and approaches perfection that even the best could NEVER match. From the two parts Chant D’Espoir (with the tears of joys guaranteed with Pauline Vaillancourt (a superb soprano in its second pazrt) abd the very evolving Resurrection (start from percussive to end up symphonic), this album is simply awesome and flawless. Burt let’s face it, there is part of reconstruction because the master tapes were simply not well kept and parts had to be taken from the vinyls.How can a second side succeed to such a perfect predecessor? By being completely different, of course, and D-B makes sure they did that right. The mood is more dedicated to free (almost improvised) percussions with gloomy nightmarish electronic ambiances like Eno, Schulze and Froese, or even Ralf And Florian (Kraftwerk) or the other Florian (Fricke of the early Popol Vuh albums). This album is certainly schizophrenic, and if on the first side Vincent was at the service of Michel Georges, on this other side, M-G is at the service of Vincent. And while again, not really groundbreaking, they manage to take the musical genre to perfection. The music is often gothic and cosmic-psychedelic (the way Floyd was in the UmmaGumma studio album), and is as strong as Zeit or Affenstunde. While the proghead might appreciate better the first side, they will certainly concede that the second is not far behind, even if in a completely different ballgame. Is this album among the best Krautrock? In your best ten, most likely, once you’ve discovered it.

Review by Sean Trane (Hugues Chantraine) for ProgArchives

One of the best ,imho, recordings ever came out from Canada.Dark ,sometimes cosmic electronics with some operatic(soprano ) vocal parts reminding early Tangerine Dream ,some works of Harry Partch combined with contemporary music elements and avant gardish electronics in the German "school" tradition.

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