Sean Trane To be honest, by the start of the last calendar year ('13), after a four to six year silence, I thought that TWO was a dead thing. It sure seems like the project certainly went through a delicate phase, since there remains only two members from the line-up that had recorded the awesome Stories From The Shed. Indeed only leader Delville and drummer Delchambre remain, the main change being the addition of Antoine Guenet (ex-PaNoPTiCoN and presently also in the new Univers Zero line-up). Actually, if memory serves, most of the newcomers come of PaNoPTiCoN, which never had a fixed line-up anyway, due to the concept of the project. Elsewhere Pollard gave way to Mottet on bass, and Melia and Lourtie are now blowing the horns, and the always excellent vibraphonist Benoit Moerlen appears as a guest on no less than four tracks. So, something did happen, and TWO's rebirth six years after is a sweet gift, courtesy of the great Moonjune label.

Despite the heavy line-up changes, you'll have no problems recognizing instantly TWO, but I would not call ATE just another Wrong Object album. This is probably the band's most "prog-rock" album, despite retaining its heavy JR/F and Zappa atmospheres. The heavy Detox Gruel is a mix of riffs and gypsy jazz music. The three-parts and almost 17-mins Jungle Cow is the centrepiece of the album, but hardly the most accessible, as the first two movements are often bordering on dissonance, but it remains reasonable, and the third really delivers the good with some cool dramatics. The following Glass Cubes features female vocals, and though it brings a breath of fresh air, though the start has a "déjà-entendu", but the second part sounds like a cross of Gong meets Kate Bush.

A fine return to affairs from a group most of us thought dead (or at least dormant), although it doesn't reach the perfection of Stories From The Shed. While ATE might not be the most representative of their usual soundscapes (given the important line-up changes), it's still very much a worthy TWO album, and ranks in my top 5 album of 2013, among with Maalouf's Illusions and Setna's Guérison. Definitely worth investigating

Sean Trane Third or fourth album (depending whether you consider the Elton Dean session as a TWO album) from this Liège group, still with the same line-up as before, but this time the album was released on the great Moonjune label. Once again guitarist Michel Delville is the main songwriter, though all four other members have at least two credits or co-credits. There is no real explanation for this very forest- infested album title and artwork, and to be honest, the dominance of green on the digipak doesn't match the music, which tends to red hot, even more so than the woman's red hairs ion the artwork.

Opening on a few bars of a Klezmer-Manouche tune (like we've all hear a thousand times before), Sonic Riot veers a tad Gong-esque with an excellent closing passage with spacey electronics and trons. 15/05 is building on that feeling and the electronic gizmos are gaining in importance. As the album progresses with every new rack, one can only be captivated with the typical British jazz and JR/F scene of the 70's. Indeed, the shadows of Elton Dean, then Harry Beckett and Annie Whitehead (all participants to the band's previous efforts) seem to hover all over the album, much to our delight. There is a real tension that gradually builds up through tracks like Sheepwrecked (Crimson circa Lizard meets Wyatt) and following blistering Acquiring The Taste and Lifting Belly, where a Canterburian feel seep through via fuzzed-out instruments. The adventurous explorations continue, from the trashy Matching Mole-ish Malign Siesta to the lava-boiling Waves and the out-of-this-world Saturn. The album ends with a rework of Delville's Unbelievable Truth from the Elton Dean session album of the same name.

If you must own only one album from TWO, it would be a die-hard choice between the Dean collab and this one, but if you're into a more classical progressive, their latest album After The Exhibition, which is some kind of rebirth (given the important line-up changes, we can almost guess the band came close to a term) is also quite an awesome realisation. Personally, Shed is my personal fave from these guys

Sean Trane Although I’m not familiar with every release of TWO’s discography, I believe that this could be the project’s first real studio release that has no direct link with Frank Zappa’s musical oeuvre that still today is one of the band’s raison d’être. Of course, you’ll still find the Zappa covers of Filthy Habits and Big Swifty on Platform One , but this album is mostly about serious JR/F (English-styled) with two of Britain’s jazz scene stalwarts, the legendary Harry Beckett and the female trombonist extraordinaire Annie Whitehead. Not sure what the modern industrial landscape pictures of the booklet bring to the music’s intent; but those who favour 70’s torrid fusion ala Nucleus or later Soft Machine, you’re in for a treat… Of course their previous collab Unbelievble Truth with Elton Dean and here with Beckett will be a slight hint, but it’s only by inserting the disc in your laser beck that you’ll be certain of it.

Right from the first notes of the opening intro of Honeypump Riff, you’ll just know that you’ve hit paydirt and the roller-coaster ride will be a thousand times worth the gate’s tariff. And once the excellent cover of Zappa’s Big Swifty reaches your ears, you’ll be almost disappointed that the band doesn’t stick with their own compositions, or one of the famous guest’s compositions. Whitehead’s Platform One double dapper is certainly one of the album’s centrepiece, and everyone fires from the own pistons, wind instruments or not - actually only Beckett and Dellicour have some (pistons), but the V-8 cylinder engine runs smoothly anyway. The other Zappa piece is a much better (and fitting in the overall concept) reprise than its predecessor, Delville filling Frank’s hoes in a very different (and yet totally awesome) manner, with a fiery guitar solo. The Delville-composed Wet Weather has a slight 100 MPH Peter Gunn trashy quality, which contract with the gentler Beckett-written Scarlet Mine, which oozes standard/boppy jazz, which again contrast heavily with the gentle-ballad Tinseltown with a stupendous succession of wind instrument solo, initiated by Dellicour”s sax underlined by Sun-Ra type of drumming. The closing 1é-mins Hello Mas overstays its welcome and is over-repetitious, though.

Of course, the main attraction to the album is Beckett and Whitehead’s names, just Elton was for their previous project, but what’s really the meat of the album is the TWO band, which will have a fairly stable line-up (for the jazz scene anyway) for a small decade. Lead by guitarist Michel Delville, the wind trio of Delplancq, Dellicourt and Estievenart is the other backbone of the band. Though the album contains less than 50% of the tracks written by TWO, there is no doubt that this album‘s artistic success gave them the self-confidence and assurance to pull out the pure masterpiece that would follow: Stories From The Shed. In the meantime, Platform One is definitely one of the band’s peaks, though it must fell like the Annapurra next to the Everest.

js “After the Exhibition” is the latest offering from artsy fusioneers, The Wrong Object, who haven’t released an album in five years. This new CD finds Wrong Object working with a mostly revamped lineup that now features two saxophonists plus bass, drums, keys and guitarist/band leader Michel Deville. Guest Benoit Moerlin also adds marimba and xylophone to many of the tracks, pretty much sounding like a regular member of the band. The ensemble sound Wrong Object has on here is like a jazz-rock mini ‘big band’, very much in the style of Frank Zappa or early Don Ellis. The musical influences on here also show a strong interest in Zappa, as well as music from Eastern Europe and the Middle East, the melodies of Bartok and Stravinsky, and that quirky European style of jazz-rock known as Canterbury.

There is rarely a dull moment on “Exhibition” as complex arranged melodies build and then open up to solo sections that give the different members a chance to really stretch out. The individual tracks don’t seem to matter much as every thing just flows together as a sort of world beat fusion symphony. The style of fusion on here accentuates the jazz and is very much rooted in a loose swing feel as invented by guys like Jack DeJohnette, so there is very little plodding rock beats. Despite their obvious interest in the past, Wrong Object maintains a modern sound with a tasteful use of electronic ambience, occasional chiming post-rock guitars and some drumnbass beat influences too.

After years of neglect and dwindling sameness, the fusion genre has been making a comeback recently in the hands of artists who are re-exploring the jazz roots of the genre and bringing in fresh creative approaches. The fact that fusion is no longer as profitable as it once was has been a blessing for the style’s integrity and helped drive away those who soaked the fusion style for big dollars. In that spirit of high energy creativity, it is easy to recommend “After the Exhibition” to fans of modern jazz fusion.