Amestoy Trio - Le Fil
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Amestoy Trio
Le Fil
Daqui (www.nuitsatypiques.org)

cd cover Occasionally, an idiosyncratic visual statement truly captures the mood of the music it envelops. Le Fil (the cutting edge, succession, thread or yarn) is as cheerfully insouciant as the crew-cut, sun-burnt, cigar-chomping lads whose knowing communal smirk adorns the cover, with their boyish, devil-may-care panache, poised to leap off a towering cliff into the roiling, wine-dark sea, cast on a dare into the maniac draught of fortune.

Listen!
Hailing from Toulouse, accordionist Jean-Luc Amestoy leads an unlikely project, with Gilles Carles on acoustic guitars and Nicolas Calvet on tuba. They embark upon a beguiling odyssey through the Mediterranean and beyond, from Paris caf� to Occitan, Italy, Sardinia, Andalusia, Argentina and Brazil.

Carles is a fluid, articulate player, coursing with endless variation through gypsy guitar vamps and single-note runs the envy of any acoustic picker. He's loose and lyrical, ever attuned to the shifting dynamics and complementary registers of a spare but resonant instrumental array.

Calvet's tuba is a large-bore sonic wonder, balm for destitute souls conditioned to slander the big horn as some risible oom-pah clich�. So agile and sublime its sound, the listener, unwary, may not at first register or identify the breezy source of the punctuated, swelling, evocative baritones, the astonishing lightness of airborne brass.

There's no "Lady of Spain" schmaltz either. Amestoy caresses his instrument, coaxing memory, bittersweet longing and melancholy from the bellows and key stops, master of the accordion's immense expressive range. His subtle touch puts him in league with the best of European roots exponents: Filippo Gambetta, Maria Kalaniemi and Riccardo Tesi.

Like all great music, feeling with swing, Le Fil defies category. The trio grant each other immense room to essay the many nuances of their individual artistry, in a repertoire that speaks tango, samba, waltz and the beckoning silences in between, all of their own composition.

If Fellini were still with us, Amestoy could be his aural conjurer. Indeed, Le Fil radiates an ingenuous wisdom and unfailing charm that will simultaneously elevate, serenade, sweet-talk and ambush your spirit, like one's impossible child, or one's beloved, the siren song of careless love, the very edge of fate itself. - Michael Stone

CD available at cdRoots

MP3 downloads available from Calabash


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