Wednesday 19 October 2022, 8pm
While one can recite a haiku within a breath, the music of Rien Virgule unleashes a myriad of them. It is crafted by the different journeys of each of its members, who staggered in the corridors of experimental music for a long time before delivering a very personal vision of pop music, as White Noise did in their time.
One can understand the full extent of the band with the length of this record. Its perfectly blends, thanks to its almost scientific, precise sense of narration, some written pieces on which one can swear to hear the melodic curls of Robert Wyatt, and totally spontaneous jams. Those latter are cut then glued back so much, likewise Teo Macero’s work for the records of Miles Davis, that they tend to form fairy tales from a lab written with magnetic tape.
Jean-Marc, and his noisy DIY instrumentarium, gave its part of chaos to the other members of the band, who are keeping on making a clutter made of metal and broken glass resonate, as if they were sparks of life. ‘La Consolation des Violettes’ is a woven universe of travellings on the edge of ruin and poems drawn with a soldering iron, possessed with an impetus of visceral liberty, a vibrating and profoundly moving music.
Anne Careil / vocals, synthesizer
Mathias Pontevia / horizontal drums
Manuel Duval / horizontal synthesizers
In association with:
Arlt, the duo formed by Eloïse Decazes and Sing Sing, have been subverting the boundaries of French song for almost 15 years. The pair have performed all over France as well as numerous tours of UK, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, Japan, USA sharing stages, with Josephine Foster, Old Time Relijun, Maher Shalal Hash Baz, Chris Cohen , Calvin Johnson, Eric Chenaux and The National. Today, Arlt releases ‘Turnetable’, their 6th Lp and their most youthful, riotous, uncanny and brazen effort to date – a collection of unruly, jury-rigged unhinged calypsos, ghostly blues and infectious love songs. Raspy rhythm guitars, minimalist keyboards, and bewitched cassette-players join forces with Bulbul Tarangs and concertinas – bending, droning and chipping the sound-world while the duet’s twin voices chant, hum and unload in ag lowingly slap-stick quivering French. Arlt’s magnetic rive shows are like comical spirit summoning sessions, psychedelic odes to childhood, macabre parties with heart-wrenching melodies riddled with improvisation and serendipities.
