Guy Besançon: Jakumetsu, Meditations. Cybelia CY 859 (1992) barcode 3361800008595
Getting closer to the delights of the non-causal thinking and the Samsâra ecstasy
Originally posted on Amazon.com, 4 December 2013
Cryptic. Just the composer’s name, Guy Besançon, the title of the piece, “Jakumetsu, Meditations”, a photo of the composer (somewhere in his late forties) but no biographical information, and a short blurb about the piece that doesn’t augur well: “a sojourn in a monastery and a retreat enabled Master Besançon [no kidding] to elaborate this collection of nine transcendantal meditations, establishing a fascinating link between the East, here Buddhistic Japan, and the creative spirit of a French musician. The work of a master craftsman, aimed at motivating the delights of the non-causal thinking and the Samsâra ecstasy”. Makes me cringe in anticipation. The CD didn’t get very good reviews in the French magazines I used to read when it was first published in 1992, which kept me away all these years. But I’ve been stalking the publications from that small French label Cybelia, and found it for cheap, so I decided to give it a try.
In fact I find Jakumetsu quite beautiful: slow moving, ritualistic in its first five tracks, VERY Buddhistic Japanese-sounding (but track 7 sounds more Indian it is use of, apparently, sitar and tabla), more rhythmic and “progressive rock” oriented in tracks 6 and 7, back to calm and getting close to Nirvana in track 8. Track 9 is only 50 seconds of wind (the same sonic effect opens the disc), so calling it a “Meditation” may be a bit far-fetched.
The liner notes are entirely silent about the instrumentarium used and who plays them. The music uses a vast array of instruments, some sounding Japanese-traditional, plucked strings (presumably biwa, the traditional Japanse lute, with its typical non-tempered, micro-tonal intervals), bowed strings (probably the Japanese kokyū), flute, gongs, cymbals, membranophone percussion instruments. But apparently synthesizers are used (I don’t think all the membranophone sounds in track 7 are natural), and track 2 sounds very much like music Tomita could have composed. There are also, in tracks 4 and 5, various nasal bassoon sounds, some of which could be imitating the horn of some freight ship, that I think are electronically rather than acoustically produced, and likewise with the oboe-and-soprano-saxophone sounds of track 6. Jakumetsu straddles world-music, new wave, progressive rock, and Tomita. No wonder it got a bashing back in 1992. “Serious” critics (and myself) were much less welcoming for these things than they have possibly become.
I’ve done a little internet research on Besançon which at first didn’t yield much. In fact it is because the guy now goes by the name Guy BeZançon and he’s an organist, composer and painter living near Paris.
For your transcendental meditation Jakumetsu is perfect and I think it got me closer to the delights of the non-causal thinking and the Samsâra ecstasy, need to ask my shrink about that. But simply as eerie and atmospheric music, it works too. However, with a shortish TT of 41:43, we are a long way from eternal bliss.