Vlek / Belgium / 2021
Since 2004, Laurent Gérard alias Èlg (Opéra Mort, Orgue Agnès) has never ceased to draw the sonic equivalent of concentric spirals and labyrinths made of cedars, brambles and guts. By constantly renewing his instrumentarium over the years, he has built improbable bridges between musique concrète and songwriting (Vu du Dôme, Mauve Zone), diagonal spoken word and wormhole (Amiral Prose), electronic incantations in crypt and blob choirs (Mil Pluton, La Chimie). The language is sometimes francophone, sometimes reduced to an alien babble, invoking the old man, the madman, the child, the dusty revenant, the epileptic bard or the messenger of love.
In 2019 he began composing a series of sound paintings to illustrate multiple states of being, which constitute the album "Dans le Salon du Nous", scheduled for release at the end of november 2021 on the Belgian label Vlek. He collaborated with his brother Mim on the production, and numerous collaborators across the tracks and the result is a stirring journey, whispered, sung and shouted flat on the stomach on the great slide that leads from birth to the Bardo. This experience lead to the formation of an ensemble to dig into this raw energy and redraw the contours of the record again and feel confident enough to present the most pop side of his fractal brain live. Èlg composes new songs with drawers and summons three mutant musicians whose imagination, personality and almost vegetal elasticity exceeded all expectations from the very first rehearsals.
Marie Nachury, a vertiginously versatile and ambidextrous musician, as comfortable in learned music orchestras (Furvent, the Grand Sbam, Arfi) as in sprawling rock bacchanals (Dur et Doux collective, Brice et sa Pute), sings, plays the bass with her left hand, the organ with her right and operates two marble flute pumps with her feet. She is an angel. She is a witch.
Johann Mazé (France Sauvage, Lord Rectangle) alias the man with 400 hands and 800 feet. His playing is a curious mixture of cold, hot, stiff, supple and incredibly organic. He can make any living thing dance and then sit down with a click. He even pulls custom-made electronic pads from his briefcase, built by a former NASA scientist.
Arriving from the depths of the cosmos: Aurore Debret is a member of the band Dragon du Poitou and also solo composer under the moniker Or Or. She sings in many different ways and energies (she has this typical Rn’b vibe) but she also plays violin and synth and make them totally cry or scream.
Alexandre Menexiadis will be there but hidden. He will have the luminous task to take care of live sound engeneering but also to be a wizard dubber by doing live manipulations on the master sound to add some spicy and cosmical dimensions. He has also part of the band Dragon du Poitou.
Èlg et La Chimie is a four-headed hydra chanting its poly-melodies in songs that clash like so many small galaxies giving birth to a new map of the pop sky.