"On "Le Fruit De Mes Songes" Delphine Dora delivers a different, perhaps darker, shade of the unknown. Sixties psyche folk, Christian hymns and nursery songs - styles regularly deployed in horror films to deepen the mystery - seem syncretically blended here. Such is the uniqueness of her possessed, child-like song, the brain immediately grasps for such reference points lending these eight new pieces a haunted air.
Alternating between piano, harpsichord and what sounds like a church organ, the traditional accompaniment reinforces the eerieness. 'Harp-psi-chord' has Dora playing daintily on baroque keys to form a stately, old courtyard over which her wordless, tentative plainsong evokes a ghostly dance. On the following track, 'Oraculum', her calling voice becomes layered, the untranscribable lyrics translate as a channeling over which a church organ seeps in like ground fog. Elsewhere, small bells, a harp and whispers suitably gild the sung séance.
The compositions remain remarkably in flux between harmony and atonality yet somehow retain a classical elegance throughout. This leads to suspicions that their intent was not to spook, but to transgressively experiment to forge new forms from ancient modes, forms so new they unwittingly inspire misdirected associations. But, come the end of the album, when dogs are howling into the wind and Dora accompanies them so effectively as to believe both woman and beast are singing the same language, the occult theories seem undeniable." – The Quietus
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Delphine Dora / music, recording, mixing
Gilles Deles / mastering
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Released October 3, 2016
Available as 320k MP3 or 24bit FLAC
Tracklisting:
1. dans la brume chuchotante - 02:18
2. harp-psi-chord - 03:51
3. oraculum - 08:57
4. le mystère demeure - 09:18
5. volupté à l'angoisse - 06:31
6. alpha centauri - 05:32
7. hush lullaby - 03:34
8. demain les chiens - 08:15
Delphine Dora is a versatile and iconoclast musician from France, improvising mostly with voice and piano. She plays also other instruments like keyboard, organ, melodica, glockenspiel.... Her works that explores different musical genres, ranges mainly between piano works, songs based on poetry, or vocal works sung in glossolalia.
Recent projects include the cover of « folk songs » album by Luciano Berio/Cathy Berberian, a concept album featuring songs inspired by fictional characters such as Beckett's Molloy and Zelda Fitzgerald, a Sylvia Plath poems setting to songs (Conversation Among The Ruins), a piano solo record (A Stream Of Consciousness), a set of jazz related improvisations recorded with double bassist Bruno Duplant and clarinetist Paulo Chagas (Onion Petals as Candle Light) and she co-directed a project of improvised songs performed by children (Les Loustics - Les Squelettes).
Besides her solo work, she collaborated with musicians such as Half Asleep, Salvatore Borrelli, Bruno Duplant, Paulo Chagas, Eloise Decazes (Arlt) and she has performed with Lau Nau, James Blackshaw, Baby Dee, Liam Singer, Sophie Cooper, Aine O’Dwyer. She's also the founder of Wild Silence label.
"Instant Classic ! I have no idea what language Dora is singing in – it might be french or it might be not a language – but listen to the expression and you know exactly what she is saying. It’s like listening to 19th century-german lieder, except easier to enjoy. Not because the longest track is 2:55. Probably because she is writing for her own voice, and manipulates it effortlessly like a wizard – the best kind of vocalist. The piano is restrained – mostly playing a traditional harmonic rôle to support the voice – allowing the voice a landscape in which to emote all over you. The songs are short, as they have captured a moment." - Julia Holter - L.A Magazine
