I founded the quartet version of my group for two major reasons.
First it was a nightmare to book the septet for an acceptable price and to get all the musicians together at rehearsal.
Second, I wanted to play more and to have lots of guitars solo room to flattered my ego.
Plus I wanted to get heavier and play really loud, which is almost impossible to do with horn players…
I rearranged many songs from the septet group for the quartet, but I wrote many original songs for my new group. All the songs featured on the CD are original songs, except my all time hit Potion Magique.
You can download the CD song by song for Free if you accept to fill in reviews, but depending of your location, there might not have enought review available to get the entire album.
If you want, you can buy the Cd for the really cheap price of $6 using Paypal.
Painkiller is a heavy duty jazz rock type of song. It starts with a long a cosmic intro performed by Pierre Bonin on keyboards. Take not that there’s no overdub on this one. Everything was performed live.
The song is extremely difficult to play. The tempo is 173 BPM and the chart was black of A6 notes figures… The key signature is also not really easy being in G# minor…
I should definitely have transposed it in A minor or in G minor. Even so, I was crazy at the time…
Lineup
- Hervé Senni: guitar, solo
- Pierre Bonin: Keyboards, solo
- Alain Picotte: Bass
- Mario Di Blasio: Drums
Download the song for free
This is the quartet version of my all time Hit; Potion Magique. I wrote that song in five minutes, singing the theme over two stupid bar chord B major and A major, talk about a progression…
The bridge took a little longer… less than ten minutes. Lol The arrangement was done the same way.
It sounds like a garbage song but actually all the songs I wrote really fast are the best of mine. It doesn’t mean that all the song I wrote fast is good, actually they aren’t.
However, when a song comes out fast it simply means inspiration, or divine guidance. Sadly, I do not have a lot of those. This thing happens more frequently when you are composing a lot without looking for a hit or thinking you’re a genius or that the song has to be complicated to be considered a heavy musician…
Lineup
- Hervé Senni: guitar, solo
- Pierre Bonin: Keyboards, solo
- Alain Picotte: Bass
- Mario Di Blasio: Drums
Download the song for free
Chez Razade is a wordplay on Scheherazade, the mystical character of the One Thousand and One Nights book and “at Razade” like at Joe’s place… The saga of stupid names continues…
The book One Thousand and One Nights impressed me a lot. I read it over and over in many different translations. I was impressed by the poetic aspect of it and the fact that the book was transmitting by story tellers over 100 years to finally be transcribed lately.
I went to Morocco recently, and I was touched to see those same story tellers continue the tradition to tell magical Arab stories in the street.
The song is based on an Arab scale that goes like this: D, Eb, F#, G, A, Bb,C#. It fits well on a Gmin Maj 7 chord. I used the multitonic system to write a chord progression with the scale. I do that often.
The multitonic system is a brilliant concept. Basically, you build chords with every note of the scale, and you make a progression with it. However, not a progression like II V I, but a progression where the only importance is the motion of the root note. It’s to avoid modal music to stay on a root for ever. It sounds like a chord structure, but it is actually a modal structure with one scale only. Smart and easy to play over.
Lineup
- Hervé Senni: guitar, solo
- Pierre Bonin: Keyboards, solo
- Alain Picotte: Bass
- Mario Di Blasio: Drums
Download Aloes Shuffle for free
Out of all the songs I recorded, this is the best one. We practiced it so much that we taped it in one shot! yep! It’s the only time in my life where a complete band record a song in one take. No overdub, no nothing!
It was early in the morning, just half an hour after we arrived at the studio. We didn’t sleep much the night before, probably due to the pressure of recording the album. We had a long day the day before for the sound check.
I love this song. Actually, every member of the quartet loved it. Once again, the theme’s chord structure is unexplainable, but everything fits together naturally. The solo section has two different parts. The first part where I on guitar and Pierre Bonin on keyboard are soloing is based on a melodic bass line with no chord at all. The second part is written as an accompaniment for the drum solo. A really good one.
Lineup
- Hervé Senni: guitar, solo
- Pierre Bonin: Keyboards, solo
- Alain Picotte: Bass
- Mario Di Blasio: Drums, solo
Download Aloes Shuffle for free
I composed that song in honor of the French Quebequers who visit Florida since years.
Quebequers are saying tabarnak every two words it’s like f… in English. Every winter they invade Fort Lauderdale to runaway wintertime.
For the local people who don’t speak a word of French, the only thing they keep hearing coming back all the time is the work “Tabarnak”… For that reason, they have been nicknamed Los Tabarnakos.
The song features two parts. The intro, that sounds a bit symphonic and the main song that follows a latin jazz groove, in a pure Chick Corea style.
The piano part I wrote was a pain to play for the poor piano player. I wrote both hand and it’s almost unplayable by a normal human being. Pierre hated me for that, but it was a nice challenge for him to beat the chart…
Lineup
- Hervé Senni: guitar, solo
- Pierre Bonin: Keyboards, solo
- Alain Picotte: Bass, solo
- Mario Di Blasio: Drums
Si Senor was written the week before entering the studio. It was recorded at the studio Harmonie in Longueuil. I don’t know if the studio is still alive nowadays.
It was a 24 tracks analog studio. I remember walking through Montreal with the three 24 tracks tapes in a bag that exploded many times until I got to the bus stop. It was heavy as hell…
Si Senior is the only song I ever wrote that features no solo. It also has one chord only thorough and everything is pretty much straight forward. It’s a nice easy listening song to open the album… The rest to follow is much darker!
Lineup
- Hervé Senni: guitar
- Pierre Bonin: Keyboards
- Alain Picotte: Bass
- Mario Di Blasio: Drums