Angelo Spencer et Les Hauts Sommets
s/t
K Records
What do you get when you cross Miles Davis, Clint Eastwood's American West, and the festering wildness of Lord of the Flies? Answer: Angelo Spencer et Les Haut Sommets (translation: the high summits). Spencer, in fact, grew up in the French Alps watching spaghetti westerns—he now lives in Olympia, Washington, the rainy hometown of Olympia beer and K Records.
Out this week, his debut will probably be deemed indie, experimental, and alt-rock. But more than anything it is a cinematic, instrumental trip through the deepest jungle—full of cerebral harbingers of something along the lines of Joseph Conrad's Mr. Kurtz. While the 10-track album doesn't impart sadness, it delivers a dark tale without benefit of human voices. Les Hauts Sommets' music presupposes imagery, and what follows are some of the images I took away from the album, although I'm sure there are many others.