In case you want to be get STUNNED by a female MASTERPIECE in dark days, listen to this MUSIC coming from a deeper place in space. It is music that necessarily had to be created, had to come into existence and will enrichus immensely. Let yourself pull into its swathe of sound and let you carry by its reverbs, the echoes of our souls. it’s music you have not heard before but it comes as something known to your deeper soul.Strange enough the sounds of the opener “The Red Poppy” immediately triggered associations with the opener of Miles Davis’ “Bitches Brew”, and, after a while also associations with Jon Hassell or David Torn. I can better use the German word “Anklänge” here meaning that sounds of Davis, Hassell and Torn were co-sounding now and then in my mind. Courvoisier’s waves and runs arehowever lighter, scurrying, more elusive, more mystic, playing with contrasts of dark and light, the mechanical and flowing, of gliding shadows and wild runs and bursts. The ambient turns into surreal regularly, even getting nightmarish once in a while.

There are eminent musical forces next to Courvoisier bringing this magical sound-light-mood fluctuation into our listening reality: Christian Fennesz’ electric guitar washes and Kenny Wollesen’s greatly timed vibraphone gushing. Composition and performance are two poles of an amazing continuum that manifests and merges in our ears, mind and soul. One of Courvoisier’s sources of inspiration, the works of visual artist Odilon Redon (1840-1916) , a contemporary of Claude Debussy (1862-1918), made it all more strong, bold and brilliant: as he said “… my drawings inspire and are not to be defined. They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realness of the un-determined.” (Odilon Redon) This extraordinary music work emerging from a long course of musical exploring development has been released as double album of twice 43 minutes running time. It no doubt deserves a decent vinyl edition!
Henning Bolte


One way and another, Sylvie Courvoiser’s new album, Chimaera, contains the most sheerly beautiful music I’ve heard this year. Inspired by the paintings and drawings of Odilon Redon (1840-1916), these pieces recall the words of the French artist about his own work: “They place us, as does music, in the ambiguous realm of the undetermined.” Without getting remotely literal about it, Courvoisier finds ways of creating a music parallel to such works as “Partout des prunelles flamboient (Everywhere eyeballs are ablaze)” and “Le pavout rouge (The red poppy)”, summoning dream-like textures that swirl and mingle, float and evaporate, creating pictures of their own.
Richard Williams - October 31, 2023