Fidel Fourneyron "Bell" brass band

How many times have brass bands travelled around the world since their childhood under the bandstands of the belle époque? The instruments are still more or less the same, but it's fascinating to hear the entire history of a people in the first sounds of its brass bands, whether they are Neo-Orleans, Balkan, Sardinians, Beninese or Catalans.

Fidel Fourneyron is one man we'd love to hear tell his side of the story. While his prolific imagination has already been nourished by themes as diverse as bebop, medieval tales, Afro and Cuban music, Fidel, despite his upbringing in brass bands, had never yet polished brass instruments.

Here he explores them through the prism of Fabrizio Rat's synthesizers, invoking Wendy Carlos as much as Lester Bowie. Héloïse Divilly's Reunion-style rhythms open up a whole new world of possibilities. As for the bells played by Quentin Ghomari and Fanny Meteier, who will be leading the dance alongside him, Fidel was seduced by the unadorned beauty of their phrasing and the roundness of their sound. A new idea of the genre, in an essential and renewed form, without bluster.