DECAZES, ELOISE & ERIC CHENAUX - LA BRIDE (CD)

"A true chanteuse halogene, Eloise Decazes has been haunting the ruins of French chanson for a few years now, notably with the group Arlt. Elsewhere she can be heard miniaturizing Luciano Berio's Folksongs in the company of Delphine Dora, or improvising hymns to the Titanic on cassette with Le Ton Mite. Her mysterious timbre is immediately recognizable, as warm as it is cold, her deceptively serene articulation, and her way of warping durations by singing the shadows of notes in lieu of the notes themselves. Eric Chenaux - a virtuoso guitarist - is known for having decided one day to cease taking his chosen instrument seriously, preferring to treat it as a bastard utensil by making it sound at the same time like an organ, a viola da gamba, an electric fishing rod and a handgun fired underwater. The worst part is that the result is quite beautiful. Apart from this, he's a mad theorist and an admirable singer. For evidence, see his albums released on the Constellation label. The shared enthusiasm of these two great anomalies for the chanson ancienne brought them together on the same album, recorded over the course of two afternoons in Toronto and issued by the Belgian label Okraina. La bride (The Bridle) is their second album and it is perhaps even more surprising. Ten new songs from old times, reimagined from top to bottom, arranged with equal parts madness and precision. One dies always and often in the rolling waves and riptides of these songs without refrain. You can only love furiously and you lose yourself almost everywhere. One hears vicious tales sung in a language characterized by insane turns of phrase. Let us be clear: La bride is not folk music, nor even so-called traditional music. It is an album of new music dreamt and conceived from very old melodies, an observation testified to by its production - all in shifting stereo - its soft psychedelia, a dialogue with a certain intrepid modernity (Monk, Cage, Derek Bailey and the "Obscure" records of Brian Eno are all visible from here), the love of inquiry and peregrinations for a present that is ceaselessly renewed." (label info)