Dupon, Jack - Jesus L'Aventurer

When I was first approached by Jack Dupon and asked if I would like to review this album I made the incorrect assumption that Jack was a person, when in fact this is a quartet who have been around since 2004 and this is their fourth studio album. Their website is full of information (and thankfully is also available in English as I have forgotten pretty much all of the French I learned at school), and it is interesting to see how they describe themselves:- “There’s no need to search for JACK DUPON in the civil registration, because this legendary character doesn’t exist! We’re talking of a French band here, made of four crazy people, phlegmatic adventurers of the imaginary. Improvisers and storytellers. Polite and rude. Full of oppositions, contradictions… In one Word : Alive. Their music is like their existences: out of styles and boundaries”.

The gatefold digipak comes with a poster, and when it is opened up one of the things one can see is are the details of all of the people that this album is about. That’s because the album is about the great adventure. Special adventures like Ulysse, small stories like Mata Hari or Laïka, criminal stories like that of Raymond Callemin... One musical walk with the stories of many strange people. The first time I played this album I really didn’t like it, and in fact I was relieved when it finally finished as this is RIO/avant-garde that makes Art Zoyd, Zappa, Beefheart, Can and Gong seem quite normal and mainstream in comparison. But, I am no quitter so went back and played it again, and again, and the weird thing was that each time I played it the less it became a chore, and the more I found that it was making some sort of strange musical sense.

This is not music for the faint-hearted, and the vast majority who come across this will run away screaming. But, if you are of an adventurous nature and are willing to put in the effort then I promise that there are hidden delights that only make themselves known when one has listened to this many times. When I first played this I thought that the fault had to be with my own preconceived ideas as opposed to the band, and I am truly glad that I persevered as this is quite some piece of work.