Eric Brochard & Fabrice Favriou - Derviche

Nick Ostrum, The Free Jazz Collective

 

This one might normally be a stretch for the blog, but that is hardly a criticism. It is more of a testament to the way Ayler Records has opened itself from its early mission to archive clunky Scandinavian and American free jazz.

Derviche is conscientiusly repetitious and gradually accumulative. Brochard and Favriou’s loops repeat, layer, and distort for an entrancing 7-14 minutes, but feel like they could do so endlessly. What is more, it rocks. Rather than the jazz tradition, Derviche seems more at home among the slow, ritualistic doom of fellow Frenchmen Aluk Todolo, the distorted incremental punk-rock drone of Dead Neanderthals (especially evident in Sequence IV and V), and the progressive instrumental post-rock of Mogwai and Godspeed!. This album really grew on me and, if any of the aforementioned projects or Utech Record’s recent output are your thing, I highly recommend checking this one out.