LA FORÊT ROUGE “Le Maquillage de Tout le Monde Coule” C40 (Cuchabata Records)

Did you ever think about how the alto saxophone and sturdy styrofoam box both share a remarkably similar, squeaky sonic lexicon? La Forêt Rouge sure as shit did! Checking their liner notes (with a French >> English App handy) shows that, along with their arsenal of over half a dozen stringed instruments, a non-environmentally-friendly perishable-chiller can be repurposed to make even cooler sounds, especially when anchored to (or pitted against) a mélange of agitated/suicidal sinusoidal waves.

As with any genre of music, Free Jazz has its fair share of soulless, attention-seekers; the difference being that, with punk/blues/jazz/calypso/rock/gamelan(etc) players, it’s easier to tell when one doesn’t know their own shit from shine-o-la. La Forêt Rouge can map out the organic-to-synthetic ratios in their sleep, musically speaking.

“Le Maquillage de Tout le Monde Coule” is a collection of brilliantly sculpted balances between acoustic phenomena and electronically synthesized intentions; between long-form resonations and spastic, stoccato phrasings; between instrumental pattern permutations, contact-mic’d-accents, and multi-lingual-tongues a-flailing; between chordal considerations and atonal fuck-alls. With this release, La Forêt Rouge manages to fill in the-gaps-between-the-gaps with electrifying texture AND its magnetic absence, in expertly unpredictable shifts.

https://laforetrouge.bandcamp.com/track/le-maquillage-de-tout-le-monde-coule
and/or
https://cuchabatarecords.bandcamp.com/

--Jacob An Kittenplan

LA FORÊT ROUGE “Hygiénique et noble” C37 (Small Scale Music)

Go ahead, La Forêt Rouge, you Montrealers just sit up there beyond our northern border and hock metaphorical loogies of scorn in our direction, us Americaners. I mean, Hygenic and Noble? Really? That’s what Hygiénique et noble means, and don’t think I don’t get the reference to our healthcare situation down yonder. Yes, it would be nice to have healthcare for all, and sure, it would be just swell if our women and poor, you know, probably the people who need it most, could get some semblance of affordable health insurance, but you know what today is? Today is the Bud Light afterparty (or not, actually) of our “government” at work, where we the people are stripped of human rights and sentenced to an existence based on hopes and dreams – as in, hope I don’t get sick, and, I dream of a time when that bike accident didn’t happen because I can’t afford to have my leg fixed and I’m a bike messenger, oh noes…

Motherfucking IRONY!

Or, maybe, you’re here to take our mind off of the hilarious and hilariously awful House of 1000 Corpses torture chamber our lives here have become, and banishing Dr. Satan is your foremost mission with your music and your positive outlook. Isn’t it true that a spirit of holy improvisation summons benevolent spirits? I think I read that somewhere, maybe a comic book. But still, it’s a good thing your music has all the healing capabilities that a Johns Hopkins–educated physician does – and for only six measly dollars! Hygiénique et noble is essentially the vanguard of Canadian fusion, at times frizzing itself out into Sonny Sharrock territory, but mostly puttering around the old workshop intent on discovering every sonic nook and cranny that the four-piece can infiltrate with their imaginations. Live improvisation doesn’t always sound this adventurous, but when it does, it often comes from La Forêt Rouge. Oh, didn’t you know? I reviewed them once before, gave ’em an ol’ positive reaction right here in these hallowed electronic pages. Doing it again here. Well, except for calling them out for their smug Canadian-ness. Which, come to think of it, is all America ever does, so, … we deserve it? But not this leadership. Fuck us.

And then I think of the people of the Global South… Oh boy. Perspective. Jesus.

La Forêt Rouge

Cuchabata Records

--Ryan Masteller

LA FORÊT ROUGE “Hors de tout doute déraisonnable (Trilogie du doute II)” C40 (Small Scale Music)

I’m as surprised as you are that I woke up this morning still breathing oxygen on planet earth, huffing down sweet gulps of fresh air while perceiving the surroundings of my bedroom. It was touch and go there for a while – I just never know when the universe is going to wink out of existence, so I try to engender a healthy sense of awe within myself at the most mundane things.

Here’s the greatest news of all, at least on a day like today, when the act of waking up is itself particularly flabbergasting: you don’t have to settle for uninteresting music! I sure am not, and instead of reaching for the go-to morning rock records (whatever your choice is, be it Sublime, Korn, Dave Matthews, or another musical artifact), I grabbed the top tape off the #CASSETTEGODS stack that’s sitting by my desk, hoping against hope to be blown into another dimension (but sort of not hoping that the tape would cause the universe to wink out – I think I’ve covered that I’m pretty terrified of that happening). Guess what I grabbed? Guess, guess! Yes, it was Three Fourths Tiger’s Indoor Voice, but I’d already reviewed that (two times, it turns out), so I put it back. No, what I really grabbed was La Forêt Rouge’s tongue-twisteringly titled (in French, too!) Hors de tout doute déraisonnable (Trilogie du doute II), a sequel to part 1 of a planned trilogy. The title means “Beyond Any Reasonable Doubt,” and there is absolutely no way anybody’s going to have any questions about anything after listening to this supermassive black hole of a cassette engulf everything in existence.

Over two songs and forty minutes, the four-piece from Montreal melds stuttering funk, krautrock, and psychedelic Brazilian influences into one bizarre and compelling whole. Imagine Can and Fela Kuti harnessing Sun Ra’s comet, and you’re close. Every second is improvised, and the players form their own magnetic field around one another, a field so powerful that it’s impossible to believe Montreal, the city, is still standing in the wake of this thing. It’s cosmic; it’s out there. It’s more powerful than we can possibly imagine. In fact, I’m willing to bet that the flickering of reality at the edge of my periphery is actually being caused by me listening to this. Uh oh.

I’m at the end of the tape, and it’s clear that we’re a fraction of a millisecond away from the universe actually collapsing in upon itself. La Forêt Rouge is to blame. I have just enough time (I’m really fast) to finish this review and hit “send” on the email to #CASSETTEGODS HQ. It’s definitely too late to warn everybody. Oh well. It might actually even be too late to finish this sentence, come to think of it, so if you’re reading this and I don’t

Small Scale Music

La Forêt Rouge

--Ryan Masteller