Now here’s some tasty avant-rock guitar noise, played by the group Trojan Panda on their album Peau (CARTON RECORDS CROIX-CROIX 14). Some fine French players are here (all working in Paris I believe), under the aegis of Jozef Dumoulin who came up with the idea. Dumoulin harbours a taste for “post-seventies alternative guitar rock”, which might mean anything from Sonic Youth to Mudhoney, but he also liked the idea of musicians playing instruments which they didn’t train on, and this change-’em-up strategy is the basis of the Trojan Panda project. Julien Pontvianne and Hugues Mayot are both saxophonists / woodwind players, but here they are relegated to bass and drums respectively, while the conceptual minimalist electronic composer Léo Dupleix and the classical bassoonist Sophie Bernado are wielding electric guitars, along with the “Mr Instigator” JD and his axe.

The players might thus be cast out of their respective comfort zones, but this hasn’t hurt the music one iota; on the contrary, the quintet turn in a very credible set of dour, discordant and angsty strumming-mental exercises full of sullen anti-social moodswings, creating edgy music that will please fans of The Shaggs as well as The Stooges by way of The Dead C, plus there’s none of that pernicious Glenn Branca influence in the form of “clever” tunings or metal rods inserted into the neck. Trojan Panda – not a great name, but the idea is that they’re smuggling in cultural contraband in the guise of a cuddly toy – have been working at this since 2017, so some of their first-ever recorded efforts are here (captured live at a Jazz Festival), along with more recent recordings from 2019. The overall aim is free improvisation in the form of guitar instrumentals, allowing some composed elements in the mix too. Previous Jozef Dumoulin projects have failed to connect with this listener, but this one appeals on a gut level, and one can adjudge the experiment as a success. Fave cuts: ‘Black Madonna’, ‘Mythoman’, and ‘Sylvia Coiffure’, all reeking of fine tension. (24/03/2021)

Da strahlen sie durch, die Held*innen der Jahrtausendwende, wie US Maple, Gastr De Sol, Cheer Accident, Yona Kit und wie sie alle geheißen haben. Verschrobener repetetiver Noise Rock, dicht, mit aufgelösten Songstruk-turen, wird auf diesem Instrumental-Album mit enormer Spielfreude ausgiebig und erfrischend gefeiert. Mit viel Raum für Komposition und Improvisation. Es gibt natürlich auch hier eine Cover-version (J.S. Bach), welche sich nahtlos in das Soundgeschehen einwebt. Das Album wirkt tatsächlich wie eine kleine Zeitreise zurück, und da kommen sie, die Erinnerungen, und das sind durchaus gute. Trojan Panda ist ein Quintet aus Frankreich rund um Jozef Dumoulin. Nur haben hier Bernado, Dupleix, Dumoulin, Pontvianne und Mayot ihre herkömmlichen Instrumente (Saxofon, Klavier und Bass) sozusagen über Bord geschmissen und sich in etwas komplett Neuem versucht. Mit drei Gitarren, Bass und Drums erschaffen sie in rund 50 Minuten eines dieser Meisterwerke, bei denen es nie aufhört, etwas Neues zu entdecken! (mr. ri)

At the end of 2016 Jozef Dumoulin brought together five musicians from the Paris scene consisting in Sophie Bernado on guitar, Léo Duppleix, guitar, Jozef Dumoulin, guitar, Julien Pontvianne on bass and Hugues Mayot on drums, with the idea of combining music post-seventies alternative guitar rock, experimental rock, improvised music and jazz.

In the summer of 2017, they held their first performances, including one of them at the prestigious Jazz Festival Middelheim in Antwerp, Belgium. Then they tended to make improvised pieces and in 2019 they recorded some of them, in addition to recorded live compositions in the Jazz Middelheim and a series of improvised tracks that shaped "Peau".

"Sylvie Coiffure" unveil guitar riffs that remind us of Joy Division which are out of tune, and conjure-up snippets of Echoe and the Bunnymen, among others. "Karolientje in Haar Blootje" in a more experimental vein has jazz shades. "Joie de Vivre" offers a few repetitive chords and guitar experimentation, as if they were pulling them.

"Animal" closes this album with a peaceful track containing random drums and melancholic chords from several guitars.

Trojan Panda performs a rich combination of post-punk and experimentation.

Guillermo Escudero

May 2021

Με τον δίσκο «Peau» το Γαλλικό κουϊντέτο των Trojan Panda προτείνει ένα άκρως ενδιαφέρον ηχητικό δείγμα εμφορούμενο από ισόποσες δόσεις πειραματικού ροκ, free jazz και περίτεχνων αυτοσχεδιασμών. Με ηγέτη τον Jozef Dumoulin στην ηλεκτρική κιθάρα, τον Julien Pontvianne στο μπάσο και τους υπόλοιπους στα κρουστά, την κιθάρα και την φωνή, οι TP παίζουν μεγάλες, χρονικά, συνθέσεις που δεν είναι εύκολο να κατηγοριοποιηθούν. Υπάρχουν χαλαροί ρυθμοί και αργόσυρτες εξελίξεις που θυμίζουν Sonic Youth και Glenn Branca αλλά το επιπρόσθετο ενδιαφέρον είναι πως αυτοί οι πέντε μουσικοί παίζουν εντελώς διαφορετικά όργανα σε άλλα σχήματα !

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Open the gates, let the giant panda into town!

At the end of 2016 the Belgian master of the Fender Rhodes, Jozef Dumoulin, realized an old fantasy, combining the sound and the dynamics of post-seventies alternative guitar rock with the energy and the poetic power of music played by musicians playing other instruments than the one they are trained for. Sun Ra – in his seminal «Strange Strings» with his Astro Infinity Arkestra (Saturn, 1067), already did the latter part when he asked his musicians to play stringed instruments collected from pawnshops. Sun Ra called this kind of idea «a study in ignorance».

Dumoulin called friends-improvisers from the Paris alternative scene – singer-bassoonist Sophie Bernado, pianist-electronics player Léo Dupleix, sax player Julien Pontvianne and reeds player Hugues Mayot. Dumoulin asked Bernado and Dupleix to play electric guitars alongside himself. Pontvianne was asked to play the bass guitar and Mayot the drums. As already happened with Sun Ra Astro Infinity Arkestra, it was clear right from the very first get-together that these musicians can play on anything. Just give them instruments. The new band was baptized as Trojan Panda. The band performed at the prestigious Jazz Middelheim festival in Antwerp, Belgium, and later on, the music gradually adopted a more improvisational approach. «Peau» is the debut album of Trojan Panda was recorded in August 2019.

«Peau» tells the story of Trojan Panda, beginning with its experimental improvisations («Black Madonna»), adapting Johann Sebastian Bach’s «Christus Der Uns Selig Macht» or Dumoulin’s beautiful ballad «Animal», and settling on a free-improvised interplay («Sylvie Coiffure», «Joie De Vivre»). The sound of Trojan Panda is straightforward and based on repetitive, rhythmic motives, most of the time sounding sparse and less powerful as the sound of the influential guitar bands, from Television to Sonic Youth, but still playful and equipped with healthy doses of irony.  The simple grind of Trojan Panda is obviously not as elaborate, inventive, or even thorny as the sonic palette of influential free-improvisers-guitarists like Fred Frith, Marc Ducret, or Thurston Moore. But it seems that Trojan Panda was conceived in order to make some exciting fun and express the love of music in a «peculiar way», as Dumoulin calls it, and «Peau» clearly delivers such fun.

A quintet consisting of some of the brightest and most talented players in France, Trojan Panda’s Sophie Bernardo, Léo Dupleix, Jozef Dumoulin, Julien Pontvianne and Hugues Mayot bring rock, jazz, experimental and improvised skill to an unclassifiable and fascinating listen.

“Black Madonna” starts the listen with an adventurous 13+ minute track, where hypnotic guitar lines build into a heavily layered mashing of noise and melody that’s both firm and mysterious, and “Mythomane” follows with a calmer approach that’s percussion focused as strategic guitar lines and low bass work weave in and out of the atmospheric landscape.

The middle tracks bring us “Christus Der Uns Selig Macht”, which shimmers lightly for just an exciting minute, while the fragmented “Sylvie Coiffure” displays a cinematic quality where grit and power interact in orthodox yet hypnotic avenues.

Residing near the end, “Joie De Vivre” pushes and pulls with both tension and beauty amid its textured guitars and playful drumming, and “Animal” finishes the listen drenched in reflective beauty that’s more bare than the rest of the album, but certainly no less interesting.

Rumor has it that Trojan Panda traded in their pianos, saxophones and bassoon for guitars, drums and bass, and it wouldn’t surprise me as the artists’ atypical formula and sonically unconventional movements are clearly rooted in immense talent that you’re not going to hear anywhere else.

Put out on the circuit as cat.no. 014 of the Lyon / France-based label Carton Records is "Peau", the new, seven tracks and roughly 50 minutes spanning album by five piece outfit Trojan Panda which is centered around Jozef Dumoulin's idea to combine a 70s Alternative Rock touch with the vibe of Jazz- and otherwise classically trained musicians playing instruments they're not necessarily well versed in. Following this approach over the course of the past five years Trojan Panda fuses the sound of three guitars with bass and drums on this longplayer, resulting in an atmospherically dense, ever meandering flow of greyscale'ish desolation PostRock - think: Village Of Savoonga -, paired with echoes of echoes of dubbed out Industrial vibes, the artschool-leaning distortions and feedbacks that were also prevalent in Germany's famed Ingenious Dilletantes-movement which, especially in a cut like "Sylvie Coiffure", seem to be harking back to the era of Psychedelic Rock indeed, yet present more of a very singular and unique angle on improvisational guitar music, sitting in a timeless drawer of its own which is yet to be named but defo is speaking to followers of darkest and most experimental (No)Wave, PostPunk and abstract Hardcore from the cold war- / iron curtain-era alike. Quite a trip, this. Check.

Tre chitarre, un basso e una batteria suonate da due sassofonisti, due pianisti e un fagottista. Cosa potrà andare storto? Il suono! Nati per scherzo, i Trojan Panda hanno sviluppato un approccio improvvisato basato sul reciproco ascolto ed inseguimento. L’album d’esordio “Peau”, appena uscito per Carton Records, mostra questa peculiarità, che a seconda delle direzioni di ciascun brano, dà esiti diversi. Coraggioso dare l’apertura a “Black Madonna”, praticamente un post punk improvvisato, che spesso e volentieri finisce nel noise, e dura 13 minuti. Se uno non è pronto, forse poi non se la sente di continuare. Invece “Mythomane” è più comprensibile: una chitarra inizia a ripetere un bicordo, la seconda intona una nota che non fa parte di quel bicordo, ma che indica una possibile variazione, e infatti la prima chitarra coglie il suggerimento e si allaccia all’accordo che ne esce. La terza chitarra poi indica un’altra strada armonica, e gli altri la seguono e così via, a indicarsi la direzione, come un fluido che si fa spazio tra le righe delle mattonelle. Quando parte, il basso sotto si mantiene stabile su una nota, dando staticità ai vari percorsi (e in un certo senso annullandoli), mentre la batteria commenta il tutto con una ritmica gentile. Si sente la provenienza accademica dei componenti, in quanto decidono di prendere la corale a quattro voci di Bach “Christus der uns selig macht”, e ogni strumento esegue una delle voci. Il risultato è parossistico, beffardo. “Sylvie coiffure” è un’altra improvvisazione su basso e batteria stabili. Giocano soprattutto con le ritmiche qui, fortemente contrastanti. Se l’ispirazione è l’acconciatura di questa Sylvie, deve avere una capigliatura d’avanguardia, con pesanti sforbiciate! “Karolientje in haar blootje” sono 39 secondi di andamento zoppo, tra accordi che si bloccano nel silenzio, mentre “Joie de vivre” dev’essere un titolo ironico, dato che la batteria è cadenzata, una chitarra tira pigramente le corde con la leva, una ribatte un accordo rivolto dando proprio la sensazione di “buttarlo là”, mentre la terza si agita ansiosa. Invece “Animal” tranquillizza, come in un finale rasserenante, dopo un’odissea di paure e dolori. Bisogna ascoltarlo tutto, questo disco, ed allora si uniscono i punti. (Gilberto Ongaro)

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Improvizira tudi francoski kvintet Trojan Panda. Za njihov prestop iz jazzovskega ansambla v kitarski impro bend je „kriv" pianist Jozef Dumoulin. Nekega dne je prišel na zamisel, da bi njegovi jazzovski kolegi prijeli za kitare, bas in sedli za bobne namesto za klavir in igrali na saksofon. Iz nepremišljene šale je nastal dokaj resen projekt, saj so Trojan Panda nedavno objavili album Peau. Nedvoumno so njihov glavni vpliv dolge instrumentalne pasaže Sonic Youth, torej se iz dokaj preprostega vzorca glasba hitro odpre in razvija v vse smeri. Skupaj jih drži le malce neroden, a dovolj enakomeren boben. Ta večinoma določa okvir, preko katerega razpuščena igra treh kitar ne prestopi. Vsakič se vrnejo v izhodišče, če jih žar igre povleče predaleč. Zaenkrat tule ni slišati presežka, morda ne bi bilo slabo, če bi vseeno vključili še tisto, kar najbolje znajo. Saksofon in klavir bi zagotovo popeljala njihovo godbo na višjo izvedbeno raven, pa še kanček izvirnosti bi dodala.

Bei TROJAN PANDA ist Dumoulin einer von gleich drei Gitarristen, "Peau" (Carton) klingt oft wie Sonic Youth in Jazz, leistet sich aber mit dem Bach-Choral "Christus der uns selig macht" auch eine kleine akustische Finesse. 5

Tijdens Jazz Middelheim 2017 lichtte Jozef Dumoulin een tipje van de sluier over zijn leven als gitarist. Op ‘Peau’ krijgen we een eerste afgewerkt verhaal met verder in de hoofdrollen Sophie Bernado, Léo Dupleix, Julien Pontvianne en Hugues Mayot.

Met Trojan Panda veroorlooft Jozef Dumoulin zich een bijzondere fantasie, namelijk muzikanten uit hun comfortzone halen. Niet door hen een ongewoon repertoire voor te schotelen (zijn compagnons zijn top improvisators uit de Franse alternatieve scene) maar door hen elk een instrument te laten bespelen dat ze zelden hanteren. Twee pianisten, twee saxofonisten en een fagotspeler worden plots omgetoverd tot drie gitaristen, een bassist en een drummer. Zelf koestert hij een wilde droom als gitarist sinds Jean-Yves Evrard (Mâäk) hem in 2005 een gitaar schonk.

Gezamenlijke composities/improvisaties zijn aangevuld met twee nummers van Jozef Dumoulin en een stukje Bach (‘Christus Der Uns Selig Macht’). Dat laatste is slechts een kort interludium tussen de capriolen van het vijftal en is vooral bedoeld om een link te leggen met het vierstemmige uit de klassieke muziek aan de hand van vier snareninstrumenten. Ondanks deze specifieke samenstelling trekken ze geen muur op zoals Glenn Branca. Ze ontlenen eerder aan het lexicon van Elliott Sharp, Marc Ducret en Fred Frith, gitaarwizards die er evenmin voor terugdeinzen op extreme wijze hun boodschap over te brengen.

De muziek van Trojan Panda is vooral ook gebaseerd op repetitieve patronen die laag per laag opgebouwd worden en telkens in grandeur winnen, al dan niet met de obligate versnellingen en vertraging. De postrock van twee decennia geleden is bij dit alles niet zo veraf. Dat Sonic Youth en de Pixies twee favoriete groepen van Dumoulin zijn als het op rock aankomt, hoeft dan ook niet te verbazen. Verrassende zet is de mijmerende afsluiter (‘Animal’) waarmee ze openden in Middelheim en die zo uit het repertoire van labels als granvat of Aspen Edities geplukt lijkt.

Relativeren doen ze aan de hand van de nodige humor. Of wat te denken van titels als ‘’Karolientje In Haar Blootje’ (een knipoog naar Dumoulin zijn ‘Carolientje En Haar Bootje’ voor de groep B.O.A.T.) en ‘Sylvie Coiffure’? Op de binnenhoes van de digipack staat een tekening van Dumoulin zijn zoontje. Of deze gebaseerd is op de muziek laten we in het midden. “An artist in progress”, net zoals het kwintet? “You must let go of the illusion of control,” zoals de schildpad uit de film ‘Kung Fu Panda’ zei.

Twee opnamen komen uit het concert van Jazz Middelheim (terug te vinden op YouTube). De andere zijn studiotakes van verschillende data (februari 2017, augustus 2019). Mixing en mastering was in handen van Joe Talia die we kennen van zijn werk met en voor Jim O’Rourke, David Shea en Giovanni Di Domenico. Uitgebracht bij het Franse Carton Records dat gerund wordt door drummer Sébastien Brun en te vergelijken valt met Teun Verbruggen zijn label RAT Records.

© Georges Tonla Briquet

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