Fant​ô​mes​.​.​. Futurs

There have been many masters of the double bass or bull fiddle, yet few have made great solo albums. That activity seems to get left to the electric bassists like Stanley Clarke, and even he rarely made music that was entirely one instrument. 

Kham Meslien’s Fantômes… Futurs is a rare exception, and by virtue of his talent and emotional honesty it a lot better than you might expect. I came across the album in the Supar Pie record shop in Antwerp, where the staff had labelled it as one of their top five albums of 2022 and described as a “Great haunted French jazz LP from start to finish. With a sensibility between Arthur Russell and Henri Texier”. Sensibility is the word, Fantômes… Futurs does not sound exactly like either of those artists although the latter is close. Texier is another French bass player who made his name in the 1970s with albums that have some of the feel found on Meslien’s solo debut. Meslien’s past includes a French world music band called Lo’Jo and backing some big names including Robert Plant, Archie Shepp and Robert Wyatt.

The key to the appeal of this album is that it is not solo bass in the basic sense. Meslien is a master of looping, that is recording a passage using foot pedals and repeating that whilst playing over the top. This is what allows him to add rhythmic and percussive lines, achieved by knocking the body of the bass, and thus build up what is effectively a band behind his improvisations. If that sounds like it could get a bit dense or cluttered this is not the case, the ten tracks on Fantômes… Futurs are sparse but enriched by the warmth of both the instrument and its player. It’s an excellent if slightly ‘hot’ recording but there are few compression or limiting artefacts and you get a strong impression of the scale and nature of the instrument and, more importantly, the way it’s played. This is helped by a silent background which gives the harmonics of the bass space to spread out and embrace the listener.

Opener ‘Ta confiance’ starts out with no clear time signature, just apparently improvised playing that intoxicates and charms the listener, drawing him or her in and urging closer listening. Just before the two minute mark Meslien adds a simple rhythmic bass loop and proceeds to play a melody over the top. It sounds simple but is so beautifully executed and flows so naturally that it would be hard to better. The denouement is a gradual reduction in tempo until the tune comes to a clear stop. 

On ‘La Couleur’ we get the distinctive voice of poet Anthony Joseph, a voice that has enhanced tracks by Italian band Mop Mop as well as albums of his own on the Heavenly Sweetness label behind Fantômes… Futurs. The phrases are clear but their meaning is not, they require the listener to absorb them in the same way as the music, without recourse to the intellect, to bypass that process and feel the meaning. This is easier with the bass playing alone, in fact it happens naturally, you experience what Meslien is ‘saying’ but it cannot be translated into conventional language. All the listener is aware of is a positive energy, a sense that there is more to existence than that which we are constantly confronted with.

Stand out tracks include ‘F Comme’ where a high plucking that could be mandolin is reinforced by deep bass bowing and enlivened by a kick drum like beat created by a looped thump on the body of the instrument. The following ‘A travers les orages’ is also a particularly good, here bowing and plucking are combined, the former creating a melody over the latter’s beat. The two lines keep shifting to very attractive effect, it’s a rhythm that evolves and keeps you interested all the way through. I also enjoyed the use of echo and synth like ambiance on ‘The alarm’, but in truth the whole of Fantômes… Futurs is eminently listenable either in the background or foreground. Meslien’s name deserves to be much better known; this album should make that happen.

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