Marc Ducret - Tower, vol.3

Grego Edwards, Gaplegate Guitar Blog

Guitarist Marc Ducret has been making some excellent albums in a series he dubs as Tower. With Vol. 3 (Ayler 120) he manages to take things even further, outdoing himself and providing a very cutting-edge set of four composed-improvised episodes.

The instrumentation is quite unusual, for starters. Marc of course is on electric guitar, then there is the three-trombone tandem of Fidel Fourneyron, Mattias Mahler and Alexis Persigan, plus Antonin Rayon on piano and celeste, and Sylvain Lemetre on vibes, xylophone, marimba and percussion.

There are tabula rasa sections for solo guitar that build into long-lined contrapuntal group expressions that seem at times to show the influence of the more serious side of Zappa but take it all into original terrain, Ducretland.

There is so much that's excellent in Marc's conceptual composition-arranging that the odd instrumentation seems almost inevitable, wholly suited to the music Ducret envisions and realizes with great complexity and dramatic dynamics.

It's new music-free music at its best. It's a fabulous set of guitar performances and it's ensemble music of the highest rank. It must not be missed if you want to stay on top of what is NEW!