Relatively young arrivals on the avant music scene, Rouge Ciel achieve a nearly perfect balance in their music -- composition vs. improvisation, electronic vs. acoustic, abrasiveness vs. lyricism -- with no single element overshadowing another. On the quartet's third album, 2010's Bryologie, the band picks up where it left off at the conclusion of the preceding Veuiller Procéder: in the world of electro-acoustic improvisation. The group's sophomore outing featured four brief "Bond Précisionnel" improvisations as bridges between more thoroughly scored material. Veuiller Procéder ended with "Bond Précisionnel 4," and Bryologie kicks off with "Bond Précisionnel 5," rattling, thumping, clattering, and buzzing along its noisy two-and-a-half-minute path toward an abrupt finish, as sudden as if somebody pulled the plug when the band was just getting started. Some avant improvisers play entire sets like this and are greeted by standing ovations. Second track "Imbroglio" begins as a composed contrapuntal duet between trumpeter Némo Venba and guitarist Antonin Provost, but the pace soon begins to accelerate, Venba moves from horn to drums, and the band locks into a tight and crazy meter with keyboardist Simon Lapointe blasting out an organ solo across the top. After a sudden shift, violinist Guido Del Fabbro makes like a 21st century Sugarcane Harris with plenty of distortion and wah-wah on his own wild solo as his bandmates discover the ideal indie rock-funk hybrid to support him.

1		Bond Précisionnel 5
2		Imbroglio
3		Agitato
4		Tess
5		Antimémoire
6		Bryologie
7		Sous Le Vent
8		Jubilation Protozoaire