Mickaël Mazaleyrat - Planète

Harmonica isn’t my favourite instrument. Probably I have had my fill of all these folk singers who, maybe under the influence de Bob Dylan, thought themselves smart Alec when they livened up their voice-guitar little songs with a shrill harmonica solo, even though they could hardly blow inside.

But here you deal with the Specialist, with a capital S: he’s just mind-blowing!
As I noticed his unbelievable solo in Slim Paul’s album, I tracked him down. Good for me. For this record is a UFO. Original, particular, sometimes blues, sometimes folk or traditional, and occasionally mixing it all... That’s gonna be complicated to classify. Fine!
The iconoclastic side and the voice make me think a bit of Marka (Angèle’s and Roméo Elvis’ dad). Or Kent. Or DJ Zebra. People like these... Special ones.

The album almost starts like Ravel’s Boléro ("Jungle Five"). Besides, you’ve got some Boleros a bit later ("Bolerabe").
The alternation is strict between instrumental pieces (all odd numbers) and sung pieces (all even numbers).
In those ones, the lyrics can seem by turns naive ("Planète") or esoteric ("Où Êtes-Vous?") They’re in French, in strangely spoken German ("Wolfsfrau"), in 4 languages ("Sigue tu Camino", written and sung by Nansa Mazaleyrat, well well) and in Italian too ("Amore Mio").

The univers installed in this Planète, if I dare, can offer a wealth of images. Here, a medieval banquet ("Où Êtes-Vous?"), there, tropical birds and Indians playing panpipes ("Amazonia Burns") (indeed Fula flute), elsewhere a ride over the Mississippi River ("Smoky Water"), and somewhere else an arid desert, a canyon, a snake weaving in and out between the rocks in the blazing sun. The slightest drop of water, even lukewarm, is precious. No need to tell at this moment you’re not gonna move fast ("Violon Zing"). At this moment only.

Famous trademark Hohner ambassador put into it his heart and guts and brains and foot for it’s often very danceable. All the offal in short!
Admittedly, the harmonica dominates, or let’s rather say the harmonicas, for Mickaël owns as many as keys, and one in major mode and one in minor mode for each key, which he tunes himself. For all that, this former chef intelligently seasons his solo project with keyboards, with Jew’s harps – a generally too little used instrument, which conveys a crazy dynamism while make sounds bounce, and which he uses in place of the bass – and with varied percussion instruments like washboard for instance.

Eventually, I find harmonica classy when it gets carried away like this, when a kind of (infectious) madness seems to take possession of the blowing man... Even though it hasn’t become my favourite instrument!