With this ambitious project partly recorded in Beirut with local musicians and featuring Mondkopf, Charbel Haber, Sharif Sehnaoui, G.W. Sok, Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, Oiseaux-Tempête have achieved a far more complex work, richer in texture, the intertwining of acoustic elements with electronica, roaming and shaking the foundations of this almost labyrinthian personal opus of an album. As ever, the group realising both the immersive and also the total physicality on the record.
In Oiseaux-Tempête, Frédéric D. Oberland and Stéphane Pigneul have chosen a name, a call from the sea, of almost totemic quality. First, perhaps, it offers the suggestion of journeys over great distance, the distant hymns of fortune-tellers and gravitydefying acts of the oracles. Yet at the same time, comes the idea of earthly chaos, a willing reference to the telluric frenzy that darkens the sky yet also, paradoxically, brings promise of a radiant tomorrow.
The third part of a journey that commenced in 2012. A two part - aesthetic and political - proposition. How to build something that speaks of the present, that transcribes it, mirrors it, opens discourse and questions, and provokes the sharing of experience that conjures away this contemporary malaise of powerlessness and, in turn, opens doors to a common future?
The destination, Beirut - the very heart of, what perhaps it's most famous historians named, the "storm zone". With 17 different communities and all the cultural and religious fusion that that implies, its common frontiers with Syria and Israel, streams of Palestinian and Syrian refugees, the stigmata from a 15 year civil war still very much in the air, this enclave that opens onto the sea appears to be a concentrated amalgamation of all the political challenges that are faced by the Middle-East.
Above all though, was the music. The chance to collaborate with two members of Johnny Kafta Anti-Vegetarian Orchestra, guitarist Charbel Haber (Scrambled Eggs, The Bunny Tylers) and percussionist Sharif Sehnaoui (Karkhana, Alan Bishop, Okay Temiz) presented itself. As always, working with urgency, spontaneity and without pre-written material, they found themselves performing in the local improv scenes or in the studio with Charbel, Sharif, Ali El Hout and Abed Kobeissy (Asil ensemble for contemporary classical Arabic music, Two or the Dragon), Pascal Semerdjian (Postcards) and the oud player Youmna Saba. Each arrived at their own unique language, creating the terms of a dialogue rooted in the present and without set rules. These recordings from the Tunefork studio and made inside the flat they're renting in Mar Mikhael (only a short walk from the port where the refuse of the city piles up), would give birth to the early sketches of what can now be heard on AL-'AN! . Back in France, in Brittany and in Paris, the sessions were completed at Kerwax and Magnum Diva studios with drummer Sylvain Joasson (Mendelson), electronic musician Mondkopf, the soprano saxophone of Stéphane Rives and the vocalists Tamer Abu Ghazaleh and G.W. Sok.
As a seismograph it measures. Aware to the heart beat, of the hypnotic pulse from the analogue machines to the explosion of matter and matters. And in the same way, AL-'AN ! remembers. Memories in the far more intimate form of the travel diary, each track the capturing of a moment, brief sketches, the first notes the faint outlines of a specific atmosphere, the chords building little by little the heavier lines of a coherent edifice, an innate sense of structure beneath the apparent fragmentation. The keystone reveals itself only as the journey ends, the final side of the record, in the form of the epic 17 minutes of "Through The Speech of Stars" resolving in the misty haze of " À l'Aube".
AL-'AN ! proceeds from a logic of abundance, from the diversity of character to the binds that give it its structure. Not only because this opus is blending the Arabic, French and English languages, and in doing so constructs a dialogue between Europe and the Middle-East. But also because it safeguards moments of wondering (« I Don't Know What Or Why (Mish Aaref Eish w Leish »), of self doubt, of nocturnal reveries, of times of fervour and of compact and condensed energy. The feeling of tension and confinement is mirrored in the open spaces of the night beneath a blanket of stars. Silence responds to the heat of noise, urban chaos greeting endless space, creating moments of calm which on previous albums had been only hinted at. Sacred songs (In "Carnaval" the echo of the track "Wa Habibi" from Fairuz, captured from a street corner on a Holy Friday can be heard) give way to secular poems. The words of Mahmoud Darwish his own voice on "The Offering" and his words, taken from "The Red Indian's Penultimate Speech To The White Man" ,resonate on "Through The Speech Of Stars". The speech of the political, an articulated language ,finds its counterpart in the anonymous scream or the sound of singing birds. Like a chorale, AL-'AN ! blurs the origins. It embraces this "Now!" the living and the dead, the world and us, the misery and the bliss of being. Here and now. One thing is certain: the story of the night that OISEAUX-TEMPÊTE paints is one that moves towards the day, and is one in which Eros still has words left to say.

The Dale Cooper Quartet & The Dictaphones are returning with their 4th album called "Astrild Astrild". Like all of the previous albums, the band recorded the seven pieces at home in Britanny during several sessions between 2013 and 2016.
The characteristics of this full-length are classic drone soundscapes mixed with deep tone saxophone parts that became the band's trademark since the release of their debut album in 2006. Slowly paced, the new tracks are following the Quartet's basic structure and classical sound. Apart from that the new full length conceals more live takes including guitars, bass and Rhodes keys and even piano sounds are haunting for the first time at the end of 'Ocho Acenteur'. With these new elements the songs of "Astrild Astrild" are pushed further into a large tunnel of deafening rhythmic parts and field ambiant textures.
Vocals are a major element of the Dale Cooper Quartet & The Dictaphones' DNA since the second album "Metamanoir" (2011). Sometimes breathy, sometimes deep and often mysterious, Ronan MacErlaine, Gaëlle Kerrien and Zalie Bellacicco voices appear in the corners of the songs as ghostly figures or eerie characters.
The new album "Astrild Astrild" is a glimpse of the present live sound of the Dale Cooper Quartet: 50's crooners singers, noisy guitars, atmospheric electronic and hypnotic jazz. All of these elements painted in monochrome black.

Almost 10 years have passed since Onra arrived with the charmingly eccentric Chinoiseries LP. 32 Hip-Hop beats formed the sample-based project - dusty Chinese vinyl hissing and crackling throughout – resulting in an intriguing and spontaneous mix of the producers interest in exploring a newly-discovered style of Music with his love for classic Hip-Hop production.
Using the style of analogue MPC production combined with the somewhat restrictive record sampling of strictly Chinese Music records, he has been able to be creative over three volumes, an amount of 100 instrumentals, despite the challenge of finding more obviously standout samples in Chinese music.
The Chinoiseries projects are the type of albums that invites the listener to play it from beginning to end, in order to really enjoy the trip and appreciate the variety of rhythms and textures spread over those 32 short instrumentals. In that way, “Pt.3” is no different to its predecessors, but the originality of the samples, the curious harmonies and the odd-drum patterns still makes the album sounds as fresh as the first one.
Onra finishes this epic trilogy with class as a result of extended record digging across the Far East and the producer's own development over the preceding 10 years.
As a producer who has released records inspired by 80's Funk, 90's Hip-Hop and R'n'B, Electronic and even a Spiritual Jazz project, “Pt. 3” brings this stylised set to a close.
Normally a man of few words, Onra has his own take on the three
Volumes:
I see the first Chinoiseries as a trip, inspired by my own first travel to Asia, each beat representing one particular moment of the journey, the second one, more like a soundtrack to a movie, each beat representing a different scene, and the third one, I tried to create a dark, smoky and mysterious cinematic atmosphere so you could create your own movie in your head.
For this last episode, I just really wanted to have fun with this type of material for the very last time. I dug deeper than ever and I have tried to do as many different rhythm patterns as possible, from various influences like Hip-Hop (from different eras), to Bossa to Indian Music to Psych Rock, Soul, etc. and try to portray a different image of Chinese Music.

French composer and Ondes Martenot virtuoso, Christine Ott releases her first full-length album since 2009 and her debut record for Gizeh Records.Only Silence Remains is beautifully melodic and filled with mystery, seeing multi-instrumentalist Ott performing on a variety of different instruments throughout the record.
Ott's creations are nothing short of magical, with the piano taking centre stage throughout, accompanied perfectly by the Ondes Martenot, harmonium, tubular bells and percussion. This music is revelatory in its ability to transport you to another time or perhaps even another world. It's nocturnal qualities coupled with subtle romance reveal an artist at the top of her game. Only Silence Remains seeps into your unconscious, and rewards with repeated listening.
From movie soundtracks to opera, through improvisation, contemporary music, theatre plays, dance or rock music, Christine Ott's musical path has always been guided with a ‘no limit’ spirit and will to share her passion for new sounds with others. Ott is a true eclectic artist with a musical journey that knows no concessions, always driven by an insatiable curiosity, uncompromising musical choices, and cooperations born with passion and heart. Collaborations with the likes of Yann Tiersen, Radiohead, Tindersticks, Syd Matters, Daau, Raphelson, Noir Désir, Vénus, Oiseaux-Tempête and Foudre! have lasted over time.... Her music is all together unclassifiable, disturbing, inspired and melodious.
Ott is a mischievous, extraterrestrial being. Always looking for new and interesting ways to work, she does not settle on one instrument, such as the Ondes Martenot: an enigmatic electronic musical instrument invented by Maurice Martenot in 1928. Nor does she settle on one musical style: she is working with an ever-present passion to shuffle the cards. Ott was an integral part of Yann Tiersen's experimental band for ten years, contributing on both recorded material and live shows alongside a vast amount of other work for theatre, film and dance.

巴黎的双人男子团（没错是男子！）Ann Wants to Dance的MV是Soko导的哦

The second full length from Throane is the most fully realised vision of enigmatic photographer/illustrator/designer Dehn Sora (BLUT AUS NORD, ULVER, DEATHSPELL OMEGA).
One of the most stunning trips of the year, Plus une Main à Mordre (“No Hand Left to Bite”) seeks balance between the struggle and the letting go, passing from chaos to quiet in revelatory circular motions.
Like Sora’s visual art, his music possesses a hypnotic, almost hyperreal singularity: ultra-modern meditations crisply rendering the esoteric as familiar and the everyday as phantasmagoria. This is a record of cities as tombs, of failing industry, corroding capitalism, fractured lives, divided peoples, isolationism and lack.
The album is marked by greater confidence in its ferocity and frightening clarity of purpose in its harrowed ambience; finding kinship with greats such as SWANS, BLUT AUS NORD, BREACH and GODFLESH in hues of grey Doom, Post-Black Metal, Post-Hardcore and darkest Industrial.
Produced - as 2016’s lauded debut Derrière-Nous, La Lumière - by Samuel Vaney (CORTEZ, MUHD), the mix is haunted by primal screams, submerged intimations of speech and disembodied voices lost in a magma of filth, effluvia and strange beauty... more
credits
releases October 20, 2017
Written, performed, recorded by Dehn Sora. 2016/2017
Produced by Samuel Vaney. Drums by Gregoire Quartier.
Mixed and mastered by Samuel Vaney at Lead&Sulfur Studio, Switzerland.
Percussions recorded by Franck Neuman.
Vocals on Plus une Main à Mordre :
CHVE Recorded by Tim de Gieter, MuchLuv Studio, Brakel, Belgium.
Valnoir, Incivil Tragedia Recorded by Dehn Sora, Barrelsement, France.
Visual Content by Dehn Sora.

Hoping for the Invisible to Ignite' was recorded and mixed between Paris, Normandy (FR) and Saint-Margaret of Antioch Church in Leeds (UK), these four haunting orchestral pieces were performed in the studio live, and re-recorded using a 'wall of sound' process, adding the natural reverb of the church to the raw tracks.
The DVD includes the Super 8/16mm black&white film 'As True As Troilus' by Jayne Amara Ross & a bonus live performance shot by Alain Grodard & Rod Maurice during the 'Festival des Nouveaux Arts Sacres' at Saint-Eustache Church in Paris. You can watch a trailer for the film above.
Words on 'As True As Troilus' film by Nicole Brenez (curator for the Avant-Garde programs at the Cineématheèque Francaise)
'As True As Troilus owes its title to Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida (act III, sc .2). In this work, Troilus embodies denial, he does not want to see his lover for what she really is. Despite the fact that she is ‘as false as Cressida’, he remains resolutely faithful in his love, desiring to be the superlative lover. ‘True swains in love shall in the world to come / Approve their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes, / Full of protest, of oath and big compare, / Want similes, truth tired with iteration (…) / Yet, after all comparisons of truth, / As truth's authentic author to be cited, / 'As true as Troilus' shall crown up the verse, /And sanctify the numbers.’
Unflinchingly wrestling with denial, As True As Troilus combines two antithetical energies : elucidation that puts into perspective/expounds upon the complex afflicting Troilus, and enchantment that champions over lucidity in order to access a full experience, deeper than any rational knowledge. The film finds its answer in an overwhelming radiance: images that radiate clarity, visceral logic, symbolic readability, and graphic splendour unfurling in symmetry and duplication.
From the onset Jayne Amara Ross retraces denial to its source, death, defining the pathologies of obsession, addiction and monomania. As fugitive passengers in free-fall through time, we reinvent passion, heroism, adventure, or even a tragic destiny, all in order to repress our ineluctable end. Following in the tradition of great cinematic mythographers Jean Cocteau, Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Gregory Markopoulos, Etant Donnés but also David Lynch in Eraserhead, Jayne Amara Ross reworks the traditional iconography of the Fates and weaves an astonishing portrayal of the human condition. As True As Troilus is endowed with a poetic fullness, as assured in the (visual, written, musical) images themselves as Troilus is confident in Cressida.
Such enchantment is born from this raw fullness: black loyal to white, a musical soundtrack loyal to the optical vibrations, a film loyal to a strange Elizabethan drama. Never ‘tired with iteration’, As True As Troilus becomes its own protagonist in the sense that it evolves into negativity and magnifies the vulnerability that results from a willing blindness. What madness. But the point here is to transmute this succession of images into psychic irradiance. A declaration of love.'

Elend is an Austrian/French combo of… Well hum… That’s hard to classify this very original combo, and I could say that it’s Gothic/Symphonic. Here don’t expect electric guitars and this kind of instruments. In fact, we are rather in the category of bands like Chaostar. Something beautiful, but a kind of intellectual music very, very hard of access for the majority of mortals that we are.

“Sunwar The Dead”, the new album of the band, is something magic. This kind of albums that will disturb you a lot due to its really great production first, but above all in reason of the originality of the music. “Sunwar The Dead” is really dark but also really epic, and the numerous arrangements with strings (cello, violin etc) and real percussions are really impressive. If you add the great voices of the singer, you can understand that this album is something really original.
The thing that's the most touching however is the general atmosphere that the band generates. Something sad and beautiful but also very disturbing because of the darkness of the music. This is certainly more gothic than the majority of bands playing “Gothic” music nowadays. For example with Elend, we are not too far from a Dead Can Dance. Then you can understand that this kind of bands will never be easy of access for everybody. In fact that’s the real problem for me with Elend. In its style, this is perfect but it will be hard for the majority of the classic Metal Heads to be totally dazzled by this kind of music. I have the feeling that this music is a bit “too much” intellectual sometimes. And in the end, this music could suffer from the fact that it’s only for a little part of Metal lovers, the ones who really like real music...
However the production of “Sunwar The Dead” is perfect and all the classical instruments that you’ll find in this album have a great sound. That’s impressive, I say it again, but again when you listen to this album with your big stereo you will stay several minutes asking yourself what’s happening. This is beautiful, original and totally uncommon, if you like this type of music then this album is a real curiosity, trust me.

Elend shows us again that one can play music in the Metal family which doesn’t sound Metal. This is no big deal if you are open-minded, because in that case I’m sure that you’ll love this album. A pure jewel of real Gothic music but however I say it again, really difficult of access…. Well, all the fans of Chaostar and this kind of bands will be dazzled by this album. If you don’t know this music, give it a try, it deserves to be known…