Manoeuvres Sentimentales is the trio of improviser-composers – French reed players Laurent Rigaut, Italian, Lille-based guitarist Andrea Bazzicalupo, and fellow French, Lille-based drummer Peter Orins (of KAZE quartet, who runs the Circum-disc label). Delightfully Deceitful is the debut album of this DIY trio, recorded by Orins at the space Mitterie in Lomme in May 2024. Orins also did the mixing and Mastering. Rigaut did the cover artwork, based on the painting of the Italian painter of the Baroque period, Sebastiano Mazzoni’s «The Temple of Janus».
The seven pieces have poetic titles, borrowed from the poetry of Emily Dickinson. And to add to this list of disorienting references, Delightfully Deceitful is also the name of a Korean TV series (available on Netflix) that tells about a man and a woman with completely different temperaments meeting and taking revenge together toward one goal. Now you can easily relate to the trio’s unpredictable, stubborn, and complex architectural textures that encompass elements of free jazz, free improvisation, and avant-rock. This trio describes its method of operation as evoking the feeling of «getting lost in a forest, standing atop a cliff facing the sea, or watching a glass shatter into a thousand shards of light…», or as the last piece is titled, «Let Us Play Yesterday».
The free improvised pieces highlight the exploratory, energetic, and thorny aesthetic of Manoeuvres Sentimentales. The interplay is democratic, and Rigaut, Bazzicalupo, and Orins keep experimenting with timbres and constantly evolving, intricate sonic layers and fractured, percussive patterns. There is a strong sense of disquiet and intensity in Manoeuvres Sentimentales’ music, faithfully corresponding and capturing the current global zeitgeist. But the music also relies on deep listening and empathic, collective interplay that unites the distinct improvisational approaches of these three gifted musicians in their first session as a trio.
Eyal Hareuveni
Laurent Rigaut (reeds), Andrea Bazzicalupo (guitar), Peter Orins (drums)
