WL//WH Premiere LES MAÎTRES FOUS
Amidst the roots of olive trees, on the earth’s crust heated up all day by a golden sun and with a sufficient dose of moon rays, you can make a voice grow from the ground. This voice, surely, would be joined by doomy basslines played by steady hands and a shaking heart
For the 27th act, Etang Brulant is happy to yield the floor to the French duo ‘Les Maîtres Fous’, composed by the musician behind ‘Les Maux’ or ‘brg’ (already seen on Etang Brulant, and Berlin-based imprint Ygam) and a French-language lyricist and singer that you can call from now on ‘Labolakis’.
For their debut EP, called “Le Tombeau des Météores”, after two performances operated between Marseille and Paris, the duo confirms its talent with 6 powerful tracks and its unique vision of French variety, revisited with tr(h)ip-hop rhythmics or technoid drumkits, squeezed dry to let the soothing voice of Labolakis emerge from reverberated atmospheres or gabber-ish kicks.
The whole project, according to the words of the duo itself, is built as a « cosmic trip ». An initiatory journey between our material world and an invisible one, navigating between different ages and mindsets, therefore drawing a mental evolution and a personal direction towards some form of inner release (isn’t it the actual aim of any initiatory journey ?).
But the real tour de force of the EP is the stupendous harmony between the text and the music, and the space that the composition of Les Maux gives to the prose of Labolakis, without ever overlapping the tension that the voice enclose. And the low pitch of this voice, alternating monochord chants with spoken-word techniques, hides touching poetry that any people could feel, only with the impression that its deep tone suggests. Moreover, the particular reading of the lyricist transforms words we know into mysterious worlds, revisiting their proper meaning by a detached pronunciation.
As if, to conclude, the trip that Les Maîtres Fous offer us was just a way to remind us that
this is the meaning of the journey and the journey itself that counts, and not the arrival – in these meteors tomb
“The Death of Icarus”, WL//WH is pleased to premiere, unravels esoteric lyrics to dive into the metaphysical realms of being tempted by the divine, escaping the mortal flesh, and becoming one with the Universe.
Primal jackal howls radiate upwards through slowed, stark breakbeat rhythms and sinuous swelling deep bass pulses, building a mesmeric tapestry of expanding horizons under deep heartfelt French vocal’s ceremonial release of transformative energies, while stark, trembling, lonely resonant wistful chords and warm glowing synth swathes rise hypnotically into a soothing incandesce of celestial awe.
Les Maîtres Fous‘ upcoming 6-track EP “Le Tombeau des Météores” is slated for release on May 5, 2021, through Etang Brûlant [EB27].
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