The debut album of the Midwestern Brooklynite sibling duo French Horn Rebellion is an ensemble of short-fused fireworks that can easily become deliciously confusing. French Horn Rebellion has been described as “the next big thing in electro,” and is fortunately much more than that. Their sound encompasses the last four decades of music with some references that would give goose bumps to anyone old enough to remember the first farewell tour of the Rolling Stones.
The first tune “Up All Night”, with its ‘80s-revival party groove, tricks the listener to think this is yet another dance album. The first shift in style happens, almost imperceptibly, with the second piece “This Moment”, rolling with its disco bass riff and mid-song break that Travolta would have been proud to gyrate his hips to back in 1977. Then something happens. Before the end of this song, the echoes of guitars that defined the ‘80s start the transition to “Last Summer”, a meet-cute of The Police and the crew from the Yellow Submarine (and some French horns).
This eclecticism is only the ripple on the surface of this 14-track album. “Geomancer’s Compass and Other Quasi-Scientific Findings” directs the audience along darker path by pointing to several different directions from the Chemical Brothers (QRO album review) and Groove Armada (replace the trombone with a French horn) to Pink Floyd.
Not unlike Ebenezer Scrooge, the Perlick-Molinari brothers, across The Infinite Music of French Horn Rebellion are visited by the ghosts of Mike Oldfield, psychedelism and John Barry (“The Cantor Meets the Alien”), OMD (QRO live review), laser shows and space music (“What I Want” to “The Void and Fancy Free”) and the Miami Vice soundtrack (“New Florida”).
Don’t worry if you check, more than once, if your music player is on shuffle. The styles between – and inside – songs are often disparate and seem quilted together by a mad hatter on LSD. “Mawson’s Peak” is the perfect example of this schizophrenia with its Duran Duran to Moby (QRO live review) to, once again, Mike Oldfield progression. The listener comes down from this trip softly helped by last song “Antarctica / The Decision”, which showcases some impressive French horn skills by Robert Perlick-Molinari before tumbling in chaos.
The Infinite Music of French Horn Rebellion is a collection of references and homages to musical styles of the last forty years or so. More than just rebelling, which has been done and overdone by now, the band embraces what they grew up listening to and craft it with brio and ethereal voices. Also, French horn makes everything sound much better… Could it be the bacon of music?
MP3 Stream: “This Moment”
