The members of Montreal-based avant quartet Rouge Ciel might be comparatively youthful faces on that city's experimental and new music scene, but they seem keenly aware of their earliest antecedents in musique actuelle, drawing on influences that date back over 30 years. And yet they are not mere throwbacks to an earlier era of Quebec progressive music, having internalized recent trends among their peers and elders, while also manifesting their own musical personalities and a unique collective identity. Violinist Guido Del Fabbro and guitarist Antonin Provost formed Rouge Ciel (which translates as Sky Red) as a duo in 1996, when the two were still in high school. Over the next two years the group expanded in size, becoming as large as a sextet but eventually settling into the quartet lineup that exists to this day: Del Fabbro, Provost, keyboardist Simon Lapointe, and drummer/trumpeter Némo Venba.

The quartet's eponymous debut, recorded and released by the Monsieur Fauteux, M'Entendez-Vous? label in 2001, was an exceedingly varied and accomplished effort, balancing intricate and dense multi-layered compositions (yet often paradoxically light in feel) with jazzy improvisation, while at times also harking back to the Quebecois rural folk pastoralism of Conventum, a quartet of true musique actuelle godfathers -- guitarists André Duchesne and René Lussier, violinist Bernard Cormier, and bassist Jacques Laurin -- that formed in 1978. In an interview with the Italian AltrOck label's Marcello Marinone, Del Fabbro cites jazz-rock and prog rock as particular influences during Rouge Ciel's early years, as well as music of the ECM and even Windham Hill labels. Yet other influences could be heard by the time the band's first album was released: strong parallels not only to Conventum but also to early Rock in Opposition bands such as France's Art Zoyd (one might note that the European RIO collective formed in 1978 -- as did Conventum -- a year that might seem to hold particular influence on the members of Rouge Ciel, even if none of them had been born yet) and even a bit of Philip Glass-influenced post-minimalism (during Les Fardeaux d'Hier).

Rouge Ciel's second album, also on Monsieur Fauteux, arrived in 2005; Veuillez Procéder revealed further artistic growth, including a bit more overt jazz and fusion in places (e.g., the nearly 12-minute Nevrealite Postparapsychophysiologique, the longest track with, unsurprisingly, the longest title), a bit more noise and metal influences, chamberesque interludes, and also discrete episodes of improvisation -- although one hastens to add that the band continued to remain more compositionally focused than many of its improvisation-exploring elders on the 21st century musique actuelle scene. All the bandmembers revealed mastery of varied textures through their diverse instrumentation, Venba switching between drums/percussion and trumpet/flügelhorn; Provost featured on electric and acoustic guitars; Lapointe moving from piano to electric keyboards; and Del Fabbro not only playing violins, but also electronics, turntable, and mandolin (some of which was also heard on the band's debut).

Del Fabbro is a solo artist in his own right, with two albums released on Ambiances Magnetiques: 2003's Carré de Sable and 2007's Agrégats. Since the mid- to late '90s Del Fabbro and Venba have also been members of the party-ready Fanfare Pourpour, appearing on all three of the big band's CDs to date (including Karusell Musik, the 2007 collaboration with Lars Hollmer). Venba is also a member of reggae/dub outfit Raw Sugga, and Lapointe is keyboardist for the musique actuelle-informed quintet Hiatus. In addition to their recordings, Rouge Ciel have made a number of noteworthy live appearances, including the 2008 Guelph Jazz Festival in Guelph, Ontario, and the September 2009 Festival des Musiques Progressives de Montréal, during which they premiered brand-new material from their third album, Bryologie, released by Monsieur Fauteux the following year. ~ Dave Lynch, Rovi