NILS CHEVILLE & THE DANSANT – Cosmique Baleineau (live) | Album (2025)

Nils Cheville & The Dansant are a French group whose music blends experimental, avant-garde, prog rock, world, traditional, and electronic elements. They use unusual instrumentation: guitars, lap steel, Mohan Veena (a string instrument with Indian classical associations), percussion from various traditions, electronics, Rhodes & Moog keyboards. Their style mixes ambient or soundscape sections with more rhythmic or structured parts. They incorporate influences from traditional/folk music (oriental, South American) and from improvisation.

Nils Cheville is a French composer, guitarist, and bandleader, based in Clermont-Ferrand in central France. The Dansant is his project / ensemble: a band that plays his compositions (or arrangements of his compositional ideas) with a diverse set of instrumentalists. The Dansant draws on many influences and works in a fairly large ensemble format at times.

The music is quite eclectic, experimental, instrumental (often), and incorporates many strands. It is often described as “rock savant” (“rock ‘savant’”, or “learned rock”) — i.e. rock that is intellectually ambitious, compositional, with complexity, but still energetic. They mix traditional / folk elements (oriental, South American) with electronic, improvisational, experimental, rock and sometimes avant-garde textures.

Use of unusual instrumentation: in addition to standard rock instruments (electric guitar, bass, drums), there are instruments like Mohan Veena (an Indian string instrument), lap steel, Rhodes, Moog, clarinets, sax, violins, percussions of various kinds, “casseroles, cailloux” (pots, stones) etc. So quite a bit of sound-colour experimentation.

Compositions can vary widely: some tracks are atmospheric or ambient, others more rhythmic or dynamic. Some pieces are long, with multi-section structures.