Articles
2010 Top 10s and 20s
Will Long (Celer)

Albums
Bilxaboy
Jefre Cantu-Ledesma
Celer & Yui Onodera
Cepia
Dead Leaf Echo
Ferraris & Uggeri
Ernesto Ferreyra
Flying Horseman
The Foreign Exchange
Les Fragments de la Nuit
Ghost and Tape
Andrew Hargreaves
Head Of Wantastiquet
i8u
Anders Ilar
Quintana Jacobsma
Kaiserdisco
Leafcutter John
Clem Leek
The Lickets
The Machine
Magda
My Fun
Ostendorf, Zoubek, Lauzier
Part Timer
Phillips + Hara
RV Paintings
Set In Sand
Shackleton
Shigeto
Matt Shoemaker
Sun City Girls
Supersilent
Swartz
Ben Swire
Collin Thomas
Tomo
Upward Arrows

Compilations / Mixes
Exp. Dance Breaks 36
Fünf
Lee Jones
The Moon Comes Closer
Note of Seconds
Tensnake

EPs
8Bitch
Celer
Jasper TX
Jozif
Lerosa
Machinefabriek
Patscan
Pleq
Simon Scott
SHEMALE
Thorsten Soltau / Weiss
Jace Syntax & BlackJack
Weiss

Les Fragments de la Nuit: Demain, c'était Hier
Equilibrium Music

Bringing together the romantic melodicism of the Balanescu Quartet and the pulsing attack of The Michael Nyman Band, Les Fragments de la Nuit's sophomore outing Demain, c'était Hier is lush neo-classical chamber music that'll no doubt appeal to fans of Rachel's as well as the aforementioned outfits (Les Fragments de la Nuit's first album, Musique de Crépuscule, appeared in 2008). The quintet was formed in 2005 by two film score composers, violinist Ombeline Chardes and pianist Michel Villar, so that their compositions could be performed live. In simplest terms, the French ensemble augments its piano-and-strings (three violinists and cellist) core with an occasional dash of French horn, percussion, and female vocalizing in a fifty-one-minute opus designed to be heard as a unified work containing individual episodes of varying character. It takes little effort to experience it as a single whole when many of its dozen pieces segue into one another without interruption.

After “Zenith” introduces the recording forcefully with an impassioned overture, “Cyclogenese” raises the temperature with agitated strings driven by pumping steam engine rhythms reminiscent of Nyman's band. Elegant and melancholy, “Teletemps” features the plaintive cry of a lead violin supported by the group's other strings and piano, and the album's nocturnal character comes to the forefront in mystery-laden settings such as “Soupir.” Halfway through Demain, c'était Hier “Allegra Aeternae,” accompanied by percussion, the bluster of a French horn, and the wordless wail of a female choir, builds into a crescendo of sorts, after which the choir assumes a lead (and at times screeching) presence during the macabre “Marche Nocturne,” its diseased quality reinforced by a topsy-turvy feel (the singers also return for the impassioned closer “Thaïmiz Dih Enemy”). The album balances moments of melancholy splendour (“Cyrius B” and the waltz-styled title track) and aggressiveness (“Des Restes Vivaces”) in a rewarding chamber-classical recording that definitely justifies one's attention.

December 2010