Colleen a.k.a. Cecile Schott is has been responsible for two of the most bewitching things released on the Leaf label (and two of my most played albums over the last couple of years, so says iTunes, and I believe it for once).  Everyone Alive Wants Answers and The Golden Morning Breaks are marvellous works, painstakingly built up from sampled acoustic instrumentation (things with keys, things with strings, little things that go eee, little things that go bing) and processed so as to create evocative sound worlds.  Minimalist, but always anchored to melody, albeit fragile fragments which would be of little use in strong winds.

For the mini-album – still 38 minutes long, mind - Colleen Et Les Boites A Musique, created for a French Radiophonic Workshop broadcast, she has limited her scope of source material, restricting herself only to music boxes (keep up, non-French speakers).  It seems that music boxes come in a larger variety than my ‘flu-fettered imagination can picture (I can only see a kitsch jewellery box, music playing, ballet dancer twirling.  That, and the cruel hands of death, although I kinda wish my imagination would stop picturing them), from whacking big 1940s contraptions, to the tiny ones inside birthday cards (see, I wouldn’t have thought of those).  Colleen recklessly tosses aside the manufacturer’s instructions and invalidates her warranties by getting involved with the mechanics using hammers and her fingers, before adding her subtle electronic shades.

The result is as satisfying as her full length albums.  Demonstrating fastidious attention to detail, Colleen flips open her boxes to reveal gamelan and calypso, as well as overtones of Morricone, Reich and, more surprisingly, Konono No.1, in a series of tracks ranging from 30 seconds to 7 minutes in length.  The epic closing track “I’ll Read You a Story” decides to make full use of its extended time on air by trying to reduce me to tears (give me a break, I’m ill), as I feel its gossamer melodies suffused with aching sadness slipping through my fingers.

Download “Under The Roof” here
Watch the video for “I’ll Read You a Story” here
Listen to further tracks at Colleen’s Myspace page