Fabien is back in the saddle. In 2010, he published his intimate "KoÌ`ans", the journal of a lone warrior who fights his shadow. There were already hints of a bassist no longer constrained to lurking in the background, whose fragile yet piercing lyricism, wavering notes and plucked chords do not just serve as a carpet for other musical identities.With "Expansion" Fabien moves even further towards isolation, but also face to face with that sense of paradox, of ineluctable doubt, which KoÌ`ans had hinted at. By the virtue of being alone and facing an audience, the double-bassist always offers a dance. A sort of duet. The musician and his Rubenesque dancing partner, fixed on a spike, always on the verge of losing balance. Fabien has an innate mastery of this balancing act, an ability to make us believe the levity of his rotund partner.