Désert by Jean-Michel Blais and Lara Somogyi: Journey to the sun

With spring finally here, the album Désert by Jean-Michel Blais and Lara Somogyi is a lovely gift. The new duet, created following an improvisation that quickly turned into this album, brings us sweet notes for this new season.

Désert by Jean-Michel Blais and Lara Somogyi: From the single “escaliers” to a warm walk in unison

We first heard about this collaboration with the single “escaliers.” Many of you are probably familiar with the successful Quebec pianist Jean-Michel Blais. But what about the other two hands on this album? Lara Somogyi is a harpist based in Los Angeles and a performer and composer of contemporary classical music, whom I didn’t know. She is renowned for her work with electronics and pedal effects, constantly seeking to forge a new artistic identity for the harp, her signature instrument.

Listen to the album while your read the article

You can tell from the first notes of Désert that Jean-Michel Blais’s talents as a multi-instrumentalist composer on aubades have taken him to a whole new level, almost to excellence. The perfect blend of piano and harp, two instruments that go together, like milk and coffee in a cappuccino, so much in unison that you sometimes wonder which notes are ringing in your ears when you listen to some of Désert’s pieces.

This album reflects a sense of plenitude and zenitude, a welcome peace at a time when the two artists’ countries of origin have been at loggerheads in recent months. Although the album is entitled Désert because it was produced in the desert, it is so soothing and comforting that it sometimes feels like you’re at the water’s edge. 

The “Jean-Michel Blais” sound is back

We missed it, of course. But over the course of the eleven tracks on the album, you quickly recognize the “Jean-Michel Blais” sound, the sound of the living piano, the resonance box and the notes vibrating in the raw way that only he knows how (especially in the “escaliers” track, which sounds similar to some of the virtuoso’s previous albums), as if you were with them in the intimacy of their studio. You can hear all the little noises all around, a la eviction sessions, which, far from being disturbing, allow us to absorb their complicity completely, as if we were observing them through an intimate window on the creation of this opus.

Désert by Jean-Michel Blais and Lara Somogyi: A skilful blend of electro and classical music

Sometimes you even wonder if CFCF isn’t doing some of the arrangements backwards, as you can feel the influence of previous albums where the harp reproduces electronic sounds, but it’s Lara Somogyi’s talent that brings us back to the familiar sounds of the Cascades album.

The perfect melodies of the two skilfully interwoven instruments enchant us from the first note to the last. A beautiful echo of the spring that’s just waking up. Listen to it over and over until Jean-Michel Blais’s next solo album, with this new record, looks promising once again.

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