L'OCELLE MARE's albums reviewed in THE WIRE (issue 313)

THE WIRE 313 March 2010
Porte d'octobre & Engourdissement

Two further bulletins from L'Ocelle Mare, the nom de guerre adopted by French guitarist Thomas Bonvalet since splitting from his Cheval De Frise group in 2004. Both are carefully shaped efforts of EP length, around 25 minutes. Bonvalet calls himself a mosaicist, and rather than just play guitar, he excels at organizing fragments of sound in audible environments, ably assisted by his recordist Adrian Riffo. Each piece is a skilled live arrangement for elements of his solo ensemble: guitar, banjo, harmonica, feet, a piano used as percussion, plus whatever wind birds or trains are sharing his space.
If his first release, 2006's L.'Ocelle Mare, had a decidedly rural tang, Porte d'Octobre is urban, recorded in such choice spots as tunnels beneath Paris, an echoing amphitheatre and the Gare du Nord railway station. The flickering amplified acoustic guitar of the opening track soon gives way to a banjo, propelled by a distant metronome and stabbed by a series of tuning forks.
Bonvalet's feet pound the floor and his guitar briefly speaks of Flamenco, before a handhold fan (I'm guessing) summons a glistening chord. Such subtleties are blasted away by the central track, a relentless strum of feedback and distortion. Later the banjo too howls with feedback, dying away to leave trains and pigeons.

Engourdissement is a more magical and mysterious trip, where l was repeatedly bewildered as to how sounds were made. It's clear that Bonvalet is playing alongside water, maybe one of the lakes near his home in the La Double forest (in France's Dordogne region). A moorhen honks back to a woozy harmonica reed. Metallic banjo notes hang in the night wind - Bonvalet's cunning shifts from musical phrase to flung- forth noise are precisely executed and each piece is concise. The whole is a satisfying marriage of an original improvising style with an awareness of environmental sound.

clive Bell