LA CONSOLATION DES VIOLETTES

⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋ ⍋ Occult Vibes ⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋ ⍋ Broad Spectrum Synthesizers ⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋ ⍋ Horizontal Drums ⍋ Possessed Singing ⍋ ⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋⍋ No one could have known if the band would have carried on after the loss of Jean-Marc, neither would have the remaining members, Anne, Mathias and Manuel. How can one overcome such an ordeal? As life was flowing on the edges of grief, and as the three of them were playing together, a conclusion slowly revealed : a burning lifeblood between them, irrigating the grooves of their previous records, which fascinated every audience attending their concerts or – dare one say – their happenings. Rien Virgule was still alive. Then came the urge to go back to work and make a third record. Unlike its title coming from a haiku (‘La Consolation des Violettes’, ie. ‘The Solace of Violets’), a radically short form of poetry, the album itself chooses to stretch its limbs, to free itself from the innate constraints of a simple LP, to spread its wings in order to attain an unprecedented stature. While one can recite a haiku within a breath, the music of Rien Virgule unleashes a myriad of them. It is crafted by the different journeys of each of its members, who staggered in the corridors of experimental music for a long time before delivering a very personal vision of pop music, as White Noise did in their time. One can understand the full extent of the band with the length of this record. Its perfectly blends, thanks to its almost scientific, precise sense of narration, some written pieces on wich one can swear to hear the melodic curls of Robert Wyatt, and totally spontaneous jams. Those latter are cut then glued back so much, likewise Teo Macero’s work for the records of Miles Davis, that they tend to form fairy tales from a lab written with magnetic tape. Jean-Marc, and his noisy DIY instrumentarium, gave its part of chaos to the other members of the band, who are keeping on making a clutter made of metal and broken glass resonate, as if they were sparks of life. ‘La Consolation des Violettes’ is a woven universe of travellings on the edge of ruin and poems drawn with a soldering iron, possessed with an impetus of visceral liberty, a vibrating and profoundly moving music.