Matamore 
V.O. : Obstacles (B,2008)****
I had to listen carefully to get into the range of styles exposed with Boris Gronemberger’s songs (written by Boris but arranged also by Thomas and Aurélie). The participating musicians from V.O. are Thomas Van Cottem, Aurélie Muller, Dimitri Gronemberger, Cédric Castus, Frédeéric Renaux, Ludovic Bouteligier and Julie Paschal, with guests Lisa Dangotte on flute on three tracks, Francois Verrue on double bass on two tracks and Colline Etienne on backing vocals for one track. There is use of a few intro’s and outros and textures of clarified noise and sounds of laptop arrangements with certain recorded sounds, rather brushed sort of percussions, which are slightly smooth post-jazzrock in nature, -mixed with bits of programmed rhythms-, amplified and acoustic guitars, especially with the singing, mood-provoking wordless vocal arrangements, further texturing keyboards, often used also as rhythmical vibrations. Where the band with percussion and vocals (and a bit of vibraphones) are smooth and jazz-flavoured for its indie-pop-rock purpose, often I also have the impression that these evolutions sound as if conducted (with a leadership that gives attention for the openness in the evolutions of it), giving with it a feeling of (minimal mood-) orchestration, at least on some the best moments. Elsewhere the songs are sparser, most with leanings towards a certain folk-pop approach, without restriction. On “Where is your home” the admirations for Robert Wyatt (and Talk Talk perhaps) becomes clear : in the singing, and with the addition of laptop arranged noise (instead of keyboards) before the more jazzy band sound replaces this…
