(2023) Alice - L'Oiseau Magnifique
Review:
If you could imagine Ivor Cutler, Ron Geesin and John Shuttleworth creating music together as a trio, then… their output would still not be as outré and quirky as that currently being created by Switzerland’s Alice, as exemplified on their latest release L’Oiseau Magnifique. Describing themselves as an “intergenerational, all-female micro-choir”, Alice hail from Geneva, also the home of the independent multi-faceted enterprise issuing the album, Bongo Joe Records, and this is their first release for that label, following their self-produced debut cassette and digital only 2020 album Alice Partout. The group was formed in 2018 as a performance project for the city’s multi-disciplinary Deviant Arts Festival by mother and daughter Yvonne and Lisa Harder, along with graphic artist Sarah André. Informed by the former’s experience singing in choirs and the latter’s story-telling career, the trio’s musical recipe takes French and Occitan folk music, art-pop sensibilities, minimal synth experimentation and a healthy dose of humour as their key ingredients. Their method is straightforward, subversively blending the ingredients using just their three voices and a second-hand synth, played in unison by the mother and daughter combination, et voilà, a unique, home-spun sound. Working with David Stampfli, with whom they dabbled with the concrete sounds of random objects they found lying around, the album was recorded at the Kilohertz Studio in Brussels. With each of the 23 tracks on the album a document of a point in time or occurrence in the past year of Alice’s lives, the subject matter of the songs might appear at first glance to be mundane – boring parties, the weather, pieces of plastic, but as Yvonne explains “Our music seeks to heal, even if it’s often tongue in cheek or outright funny. We sing our most direct and plain emotions, since we want to connect with our audience’s feelings through our songs.” Having only digital files available for this review, it is not clear whether a translation of the French lyrics will accompany the release; if not, that connection will obviously be lost on those without a knowledge of the language. Two features which permeate most of the tracks on the album are immediately apparent from the opening track, Que coule l’eau. Firstly the very low-fi “plinky” keyboard sound, here opening the song by way of a mere handful of repeated notes, and secondly, how glorious the three voices are, both individually and when used in harmony. A soothing song about the fragility of being, Yvonne admits that when singing the final verse with Lisa, “a mother wakes one morning and she is no longer a mother”, it can make her cry. Three other tracks in particular, but by no means exclusively, evidence the beauty of the vocals of all group members. Un oiseau magnifique, magnificent bird) humorously references the fact that Lisa and Yvonne are both very short-sighted and sometimes mistake a piece of plastic for a magnificent bird, but also concerns beliefs “and how something that seems magnificent to us or urgent may seem under other circumstances quite trivial, but also about how we need and love to believe in something.” The simple, one-finger keyboard again introduces lush harmonies before the entry of minimalist electronic bleeps and shimmering glass-like sounds – could this be the recording of the lentils falling into the water? The similarly titled “Les oiseaux”, along with “Le clown”, offer more of the same, the latter featuring a stand-out solo vocal and harmonies treated with fascinating effects, including echoing. Lest 23 tracks appear a little intimidating, it should be pointed out that nearly a third of them clock in at less than 60 seconds, and almost all of these have no instrumental accompaniment. The rather shrill higher-register vocals at the end of the refrain on Petit elfe lend a touch of punk energy, and the 26-second chanted crescendo, which is Sur la lune comes across as a vocal warm-up exercise. To these ears, two more, possibly three, of these very short tracks, plus one of just over a minute, seem to have a connection in that they are redolent of playground skipping chants, not the banality of the Shirley Ellis Clapping Song, but rather the sort which appear in the Opie Collection (a collection of children’s books and related materials that was assembled by Iona and Peter Opie, two British folklorists who specialized in the study of children’s literature and culture). “Tout ce boulot”, a clever play on the French homophones boulot (birch trees) and bouleau (work, jobs), La décapotable, a rap-like piece which sardonically comments on people who cruise the highways in the titular convertible cars, trying to pretend that they are having fun and Triste et tout seul¸(sad and lonely), with its false laughing start, wryly addresses boys looking for salvation in the arms of girls, girls that often have better things to do then save boys, whilst a fourth track, Pas très sur, has a definite clog dance vibe, possibly augmented by claps or ruler on a desk, and, if so, the title may be another play on words, meaning either “not very sure/certain” or the opposite “a sure/certain step”. A different sonic thread running across three or four further tracks is a recurring, repeated drone-like sound, very much in the mould of Ivor Cutler’s harmonium. Used to good effect on Nous marchons, in keeping with the title, (We are walking), a processional song complete with bird sounds echoing lyrics about walking on quails’ eggs, this one has all the charm of a Gallic Kate and Anna McGarrigle song, as does Deux mille trains with its wonderfully swirling and meandering melodies. Rounding up this trio of songs is Les hommes voitures, with its very slow, almost funereal tempo and sudden sprinkle of glass rim notes at the end – could this be the lentils? Yet another musical seam that appears to have been mined is a sacred one. On Petit et gris, with its phantom-like single note drones inhabiting the background, the song has a luscious melody which eventually gives way to what sounds like church organ-emulated chords, the slower tempo of Le bébé continues in the same pastoral vein, whilst Jesus Christ, with its opening deep, sonorous electronic notes surrendering to vocals which develop in intensity to create the type of choirlike effect heard in plainsong. It is these tracks which perhaps highlight well the Occitania influence, as affected by folk groups such as Gai Saber. Notwithstanding the drones, much of the music on offer here is upbeat. Pense à moi, also written as an incantation, is a song about being loved, and its percussive beat develops into simple chords with what amounts to almost a rap, with shouty echo effects, and La voiture, with its chopping chords and gleeful vocals, possesses the most convivial of melodies. Du fil à recoudre, a tribute to optimistic people who always let you know that there is no such thing as bad weather, presents almost as a barbershop harmony, despite there being only three voices. It is La fête nulle, however, which provides the most playful moments. Also released as a video, watch below, the carnival party atmosphere generated by the upbeat chords, layered vocals and key changes reflect the title and subject perfectly, “the lame party/the party is a fiasco”. With La santé and Le Caillou, there are two further well-constructed songs, with the final track, the 39-second long Rire (laughter), doing exactly what it says on the tin, complete with two false beginnings, this sounds like another outtake. L’Oiseau Magnifique is a beguiling album of musical collages, replete with eccentric wit and crystalline vocals and harmonies; if you expect the unexpected, you will not be disappointed. — folkradio.co.uk
Track List:
01 - Que coule l’eau
02 - Triste et tout seul
03 - Un oiseau magnifique
04 - Nous marchons
05 - Pense à moi
06 - Pas très sur
07 - Tout ce boulot
08 - Petit et gris
09 - Jesus Christ
10 - Le caillou
11 - Petit elfe
12 - Les oiseaux
13 - Du fil à recoudre
14 - Sur la lune
15 - Deux mille trains
16 - Le bébé
17 - La décapotable
18 - Les bonnes voitures
19 - La santé
20 - Le clown
21 - La voiture
22 - La Fête Nulle
23 - Rire
Media Report:
Genre: alternative folk, art pop, lo-fi
Country: Geneva, Switzerland
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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