Recommended: Anne Quillier 6tet – “Dusty Shelters”

One of my very first 2017 recommendations was Dusty Shelters by the Anne Quillier 6tet.  My column for The Bandcamp Daily doesn’t utilize the Album of the Month/Week designation like I did back in my old eMusic & Wondering Sound column days, but Dusty Shelters certainly would’ve received it.  At the time, I wrote:

“It’s too early in the year to be saying things like “this is the best thing I’ve heard all year”… but this is the best thing I’ve heard all year.”

That was back in January, and here we are half-way through April, and I could write those same words today and feel no less strongly about them.

This recording is like watching a time lapse of a flower blossoming.  But the poetry of the motion isn’t discovered in what the seed ultimately reveals, but in the way it gradually unfolds.  And that’s why the headstrong “Qulture” and the reverential “Dark and Oppressive Loop” and the excitable “Talk Time” and the introspective “Let Sleeping Dogs Lie” and the scattered “Candy Dream” and the raw vulnerability of “Forget, and Hope Now” and the pure joyfulness of “Le Retour des Superheroes” and the moonlight blues of “Man In the Street” can introduce themselves with a different face and a changing sound, and still circle back to the innate understanding that it’s all the same flower… just at different stages of its growth.

Tracing the melodies of each piece is to follow the currents of a stream cascading down to the pool below.  They break apart into rivulets and some rejoin the confluence while others follow new paths in new formations while remaining near to the original source… and the melodies grow more textured and rich and practically hum from the resonant energy of unfolding upon one another.

As the year progresses and each week brings exciting new releases, it can be easy to forget some of those that hit the shelves when the year was still young.  I wanted to write a little something more about Dusty Shelters and be sure it stayed on your radars.

Your album personnel:  Anne Quillier (piano, Fender Rhodes), Pierre Horckmans (Bb, alto & bass clarinets), Aurélien Joly (trumpet), Grégory Sallet (alto & soprano saxophones), Michel Molines (double bass) and Guillaume Bertrand (drums).

Released on Label Pince-Oreilles.

Listen to more of the album on the artist’s Bandcamp page.

Music from Lyon, France.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon | eMusic

And here’s a LINK to read my original thoughts on this recording on The Bandcamp Daily.