Maxence Cyrin - Modern Rhapsodies

Compared to Alarm Will Sound's interpretations of Aphex Twin tracks, Maxence Cyrin's piano solo's are somewhat simplistic. Upon listening to this CD I was reminded of how much I enjoyed the originals and how fresh they sound. This isn't a bad CD, but for me piano solo's defeat the object of electronic music. I also get the feeling that this is F Communication cashing in on this trend for acoustic versions of electronic music. I suppose there's a time and place for this type of thing; wine bars for toffs, a dinner party and Betty's tea shop...

It's not a surprise to see this release coming out on F-Communications, as Laurent Garnier, head of the label, is one of the electronic artist who suffers of the most advanced inferiority complex regarding the "real musicians", i.e. musicians who can play "real" instruments. This is the result of a campaign lead by the politics as well as by the classical musicians who criminalized the electronic dance music from its origins, refusing to admit until recently that such a machine-made music could actually be an art form.
As far as this release is concerned... It's actually so poor and uninteresting that I can't prevent myself from thinking that Mr Cyrin, who is not the only electronic musician to have a classical background, despises the electronic music in what makes it valid, artistically speaking. To say another evidence he doesn't seem to understand, a large part of the interest of the electronic music comes from the fact that it's electronic, and all the sound research is lost here, for two reasons. First, because the piano is not an electronic instrument, but that is in our case a presupposition so let's go beyond that. To say it short, there are two ways of playing the piano. One school sees in a piano only a piano and the result is that a Schönberg envisaged it as the most flat-sounding, colorless instrument. Another school doesn't just play the piano, but orchestrates with it, searching for different soundings and orchestral colours beyond a sound that in itself is actually limitated.
I don't know where to put Mr Cyrin. If the tracks may be pleasant to hear, that's because they make your inner-ear remember great tracks, in a previously never heard version. But play it for somebody who never heard the originals, and you won't get a reaction in any way similar to the one people show at the first hearing of the originals.
A music has to be played on the instrument it has been composed for. True for J.S. Bach played on a synthesizer, true for an electronic composition played on a piano. This is not conservatism, this is an evidence: if there is not a complete appropriateness between a music and the instruments it's made on/for, this is highly prejudicial to the musical relevance of the composition.
Unfortunately this may have some success, but I do hope that it won't last long and that people will quickly go back to the original tracks.

This work is, as far as I know, the first attempt to play and record piano covers of house and techno tracks. And what a success ! By listening to Maxence Cyrin's Modern Rhapsodies one can discover or rediscover the melodic power and emotional deepness of those alltime classics of electronic music. You know, the same emotion you felt running down your spine at 6 AM in a club or a warehouse party anywhere in the world. Techno is not a beat, techno is an emotion, techno is love.