• NEW ALBUM > JUNE 7, 2024 • PRODUCTION LA CURIEUSE & LA COMPAGNIE 4000
L’étrangleuse is two girls and two boys who play a form of undefined minimalist rock and four-part free song, amplifying the dialogue between a pedal harp in bird’s-eye maple and a djéli n’goni in goatskin, underpinned by the archaic grooves of a rhythm section adorned with trinkets.
L’étrangleuse’s shelter is a Touareg tent lost in the immensity of the frozen tundra, where the spirits of The Ex and Brigitte Fontaine stir up secret hymns of a new structure for the world, finally governed by poetry.
Elusive and irresistible, the music plunges us into a darkness which owes as much to the twilight of the old world as to the dawn of the wide-open spaces where furious dances of joy are crackling and popping. Squeaking bows and materials stuck between the strings, saturation and percussion of incongruous objects, feverish spinning and psychedelic choruses are the charms of this nuanced trance.
Poems, manifestos, dreams or nightmares, it could ultimately be that the songs only speak of reality. As Philip K. Dick said, “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away”.
Tirelessly tracking the magic of almost nothing, for 15 years L’étrangeuse has been composing the modal and unconventional soundtrack of a long waking dream, drawing its inspiration from the traditional tunes of a country that does not exist.
Formed by Mélanie Virot, a classical harpist used to taking her imposing instrument far from its usual and unamplified contexts, combining contemporary dance and improvised music, and Maël Salètes, veteran of Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp and long-time accomplice of the Somaliland singer Sahra Halgan, the original duo has released 3 albums and played more than 300 concerts, from tiny European squats, barns and attics, to prestigious stages and festivals such as Les Suds in Arles, No Border, the Peristyle-Opéra Underground festival or the Nuits de Fourvière and the Nuits Sonores.
With a fourth album in June 2024, their first as a quartet, L’Étrangleuse dynamites its original post-rock chamber music with Anne Godefert, bassist and singer from the electronic music scene, and Léo Dumont drummer + objects, who is no stranger to sonic audacity (Chromb , Pixvae, An’ Pagay, Polymorphie…)
On stage, the pieces stretch out, the sound of the group captivates hearts in a contemplative reverie, inexorably leading bodies into a frenetic dance.
Studio session :