I first became aware of Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp a few years back when they played Sala Rossa for Pop Montreal? Distorsion? It’s a blur. That was when they were touring 2021’s Were Ok. But We’re Lost Anyway. And now, they are coming back, this time playing Montreal Jazzfest to support their latest album, Ventre Unique, a beautifully unhinged alt-rock symphony. Honestly, this is what Black Country New Road could have come back as, but less French.
But the Geneva 12 piece, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp, delivers a chaotic, feverish, orchestral alt-rock opus that blurs the lines between post-punk, no wave, jazz, and modern chamber music. The album pulses with a kind of kinetic intelligence rarely heard in contemporary music. It’s equal parts anarchic and precise, feral and deliberate. From the opener “Toute Cassé,” a rising tide of strings, drums, and yelped vocals in the post-punky “Breath,” to the lurching, rhapsodic “Coagule,” the band marches through dissonant swells and sudden silences like a disciplined avant-garde militia.
Every track on Ventre Unique feels like it could fall apart at any moment — and sometimes it does, gloriously — only to find a new axis to rotate around. “Dehors,” is completely insane. There’s no irony or detachment here — just full-throttle conviction, a desire to challenge both listener and performer. If you ever wondered what it would sound like if Glenn Branca led a punk commune through a sunburnt French apocalypse, Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp has your answer, and you can witness this during Jazzfest.
