“Pourquoi” originally released in 1978 on French Crypto label. It sounds like a new side of Cortex: songs are mainly composed around the voice and the various keyboards of the band leader, Alain Mion, who also played bass lines on synthesizer. Besides, the band gave up the live recording to use the beloved Stevie Wonder or Quincy Jones’ technique of “re-recording”. But, in spite of these changes, their groove remains as spontaneous and as powerful. Also, the band collaborated with great backing vocals and musicians, such as the great Italian trumpet player Giulio Didio, who performed the funky horns arrangements.

There is plenty to enjoy on every track: the ending chorus of “Sans Toi” (which has been written by Alain Mion for his wife, Mireille, and is probably the flagship track of the album) comes with a brilliant Rhodes solo to lead the listener to one of the most emotion-loaded moment of the recording. Whereas “Le Visionnaire” sounds with disco echoes, “Pourquoi” browses in melancholy and “Pauvre Star” is groovin’ high with its clavinet bass-drums rhythmics that reminds George Benson.