Antoine Pierre Urbex has been trying out two different concert line-ups since the first shows in 2016. The octet and quintet have been thoroughly explored in order to uncover all of their musical capacities and the broadest sensory and energetic scope. Ultimately, this gives each of the soloists the most artistic freedom within very structured compositions.
As individual research is easier within a quintet, it is through Urbex(core) that Antoine has decided to pursue the live experience, even though the second album – slated for release next May – offers an equal share of the two line-ups.
The tracks on the new release, “Sketches of Nowhere”, mark a bold new step for Urbex: the atmosphere is more hypnotic. Bram Delooze’s acoustic piano melts into the electrifying effects of Bert Cools. Félix Zurstrassen is still the pillar of the group around which all the lines of force converge. But his bass riffs have become more groovy and lively, with the characteristic impacts of electronic music. Jean-Paul Estiévenart’s trumpet adds, once again, a stubborn and powerful dimension to the overall sound of the group. He offers the cries, tears and laughter of Antoine’s music.
The compositions of Sketches Of Nowhere are also more open: they are contained by the rhythm section and the harmonic focus, but leave plenty of room for change and global creativity as individual. They can be played in one hundred possible versions, according to the unfathomable and unpredictable parameters of the present moment. Volumes and dynamics are in perpetual motion; the group’s cohesion is constantly put to the test in this triumphant exercise of listening and feeling. The public attends moments of pure creation that transcend the custom of the solo to make it collective … The octet completes the sound identity of Urbex, and gives us back the color that we already know well, that we liked already in their first opus, and which characterizes the complex and symbolic writing of Antoine.

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