about this album
Alain Vankenhove comes from jazz music, and yet…
This first album drives us immediately in a contemporary world where emotions and minimalism mingle with urban aesthetics of the beginning of the 21st century.
Here is a very original album among the usual stream of spring releases: while he has chosen the balance of a modern quartet (composed of electric bass, drums, keyboards laden with effects and…his trumpet), Alain Vankenove deliberately plays with numbers of influences. He enjoys moving throughout different worlds that he combines with a personal magic, sometimes influenced by rock, classical or contemporary music, or mischievously flirting with electronics.
As this carefully thought out project shows, the unconventional musician has composed his music with the intention of driving every instrument into a corner, and the casting of the band exactly accounts for the wish to play intensely as well as the desire to explore a multiplicity of territories, always with the same candour. Thus, Benjamin Moussay, Jean-Luc Lehr and Eric Echampard are the perfect playmates for this musical journey. Alain Vankenhove, as a determined and enthusiastic leader, complete and sensitive trumpet player, is the leader and at the same time the caretaker of this band.
“Beyond Mountains” is an ambitious and generous album, which win us over since we first listen to it and marks a change of direction in the career of this unclassifiable and highly creative artist.
Translation Eric Amrofel
This record received the support of MFA