kev rowland
Dominique Vantomme is a pianist, keyboardist, composer, band leader, music educator and producer, equally well known for his work with many European pop and rock acts as for being the jazz piano instructor at the Music Conservatory in Kortrijk, Belgium. In 2016 he travelled to Holland to see Stick Men, and after befriending the Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel, Stick Men plus, literally, countless others), they decided to record together. They were joined in the studio by guitarist Michel Delville (The Wrong Object; douBt; Machine Mass), and drummer Maxime Lenssens, and with Dominique providing the musical sketches, it was then just a case of everyone else settling down and letting the music take them wherever it needed to. The whole album was recorded in just one day in October 2016, and one can’t imagine this being a highly constructed and layered affair as the four musicians are just bouncing ideas off each other and seeing where they will go.
I have known of Michel Delville and his other bands for a number of years now, and here he is at the fractured best that I would expect of him. Tony is melodic, keeping things tight and mellow, while the drums keep playing ahead of the beat to drive things along while Tony holds into the leash. Then there is Dominique also keeping things in a melodic vein with fine organ, but Michel is out to take the music in quite a different direction, and it is the energy between the four as they ride the musical stallion and try to all keep it in the same direction although they all want to go off in different directions, that really makes this work. This is fusion and improvisational jazz working together to create something that is quite special.