Is there anything Frank Ouellette can’t do? Honestly, the rhetorical nature of such a question must be squashed at this point. As Hobo Cubes (and curator of the Hobo Cult label), a member of Velvet Chrome, Ouellette has used several noms de plume as a means to reach new musical plateaus. As Fallen Axe, Ouellette allows warped guitar passages do the talking. The results are rough — more like idea sketches that often find themselves fully realized in other Ouellette personas — but the glimpse into the creative process yields some gems bridging the spatial with the concrete. Much of Moments Together disassembles Ouellettet’s inherent pop synth sensibilities, transforming his guitar into a jackhammer. Notes are heavily plucked or barely touched, left to waft among the dust and disease. As is the case with most of his projects, there is no rival to Fallen Axe. The mechanic strums of haphazard approach yielding some new form of abstract pop art, the sort that not even Andy Warhol would have dared to create. In ugliness, we find beauty; in decomposition, we find growth. Yet another flag planted by Ouellette for the modern French [Canadian] musical revolution, one worth submitting to.
More about: Fallen Axe
