Cuneiform: Miriodor – The Cobra Fakir / Dieses Wochenende für Five

„Alles hat einen melodischen, thematischen oder rhythmischen Zweck oder erzeugt zumindest eine Stimmung, die von beunruhigend und geheimnisvoll bis hin zu zirkushaft und cartoonhaft (manchmal gleichzeitig) reicht. Absolut nichts ist überflüssig. Das Endergebnis ist, wie der Albumtitel schon sagt, hypnotisch.“ – AllMusic

Over a 40 year-long career, Miriodor have continuously produced music that is intricate, melodic, challenging and filled with both humour and fire.

I have been very happily collaborating with them from their second album on and our collaboration goes to nearly 35 years.

There’s a zillion great reasons to choose Cobra Fakir as this week’s $5 album, but what inspired me to do so was the fact that the band informed me that they have basically finished their 10th and latest studio release, entitled Element, which we should be able to release sometime later this year! We. hope you are as excited about this as we are!

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Cobra Fakir is the group’s eighth studio album and, like all their releases, is a captivating new-music gem filled with great musicianship, terrific tunes and a distinctive and personal sound.

A cobra fakir is a snake charmer, who uses carefully concocted melodies to put the mighty reptile under a sort of sonic spell. That’s an apt analogy for what will happen to even the hardiest ears upon introduction to Miriodor’s newest eccentric-but-bewitching batch of tunes.

Miriodor are one of the core bands of what’s become known as the R.I.O. (Rock in Opposition) style, an international agglomeration of artists whose core tenet has remained a commitment to creating challenging music that freely incorporates everything from progressive rock and jazz to avant-garde experimentation and even elements of various folk traditions.

The group’s long evolutionary process has led to the trio we hear on Cobra Fakir: founding musicians Pascal Globensky (keyboards, synths, piano) and Rémi Leclerc (drums, percussion, keyboards, turntable) with longtime member Bernard Falaise (guitars, bass, keyboards, banjo, turntable). The multi-layered complexity of the pieces they’ve crafted for Cobra Fakir belies the relatively spontaneous method in which much of the music was made.

„Being back to a trio format (once again), about one year before our target date for a release on Cuneiform Records in September 2013, with very little material on hand, we rolled up our sleeves and got immersed in the work. We built on what we had, which was a few sketchy pieces (demos) and we also recorded several improvs, planning to extract stuff from them and then creating new pieces from that. For about 8 months, this has been a very fun and very intense period of exchanging files and challenging each other with either strange and unexpected stuff, super arrangements, a great solo, or simply a very promising new tune.

For this record, Rémi has been fiddling a lot with various percussive objects and machines (acoustic or electronic), a strong interest of him lately. This gave the album a wide array of colorful tonalities in the percussive department. Bernard had lots on his hands, from morphing into a bass player, creating his numerous guitar parts, and adding a myriad of arrangements and textures, with keyboards, turntable and editing. All this, plus the job of mixing the album and participating in the mastering of the album made for a pretty busy fellow. Pascal had fun toying with improv extracts, adding textures and atmosphere a bit everywhere on the pieces, throwing a pinch of concrete sounds for good measure, ending up with some uncharacteristic passages for Miriodor. It has been a hectic, very intense and brain-squeezing period for the three of us. We delivered in time, and the baby’s going fine, thank you!“ 

Released September 24, 2013

Music composed and performed by MIRIODOR
Bernard Falaise guitars / bass / keyboards / banjo / turntable
Pascal Globensky keyboards / synths / piano
Rémi Leclerc drums / percussion / keyboards / turntable

Recorded in Montreal by Bernard Falaise and Bernard Grenon.
Produced, mixed and edited by Bernard Falaise.

1) Click this album link: https://cuneiformrecords.bandcamp.com/album/cobra-fakir
2) Click „Buy Digital Album“
3) Type „10“ into the Name your price field (The discount comes next! 😉 ).
4) Type the word „FIVE“ into the Discount code field.
5) Click „apply“
6) Click „Check out now“ or „Add to Cart“