(2019) Léonore Boulanger - Practice chanter
Review:
On their fourth album of deconstructed chanson, Léonore Boulanger and Jean-Daniel Botta, assisted by drummer and percussionist Laurent Seriès, have taken a major step up. If previous album Feigen Feigen was, by the band’s own admission, something of a puzzle then Practice Chanter could be likened to a mosaic, due to the sheer quantity and variety of sonic fragments that is somehow made to cohere in these 16 wild, wonderful tracks. The title appears to refer to singing lessons – or perhaps the practice of singing itself – and the play around the rhythms of different words and languages suggests a series of unconventional vocal exercises. Practice Chanter is awash with voices, some evidently Boulanger with her distinctively wispy, childlike tone, while with others its hard to say – samples, field recordings? Who is repeatedly croaking ‘la la euh-la’ on ‘Rouler sa tête la montagne’ as though their throat is pinched from dehydration? Is that a snippet of someone singing opera on ‘La transe de son prochain’? ‘Bruyant qu’brillant’ is typical in that the rapid rhythm, and even a kind of melody, formed from the words “bruyant” and “brillant” gives the song its impetus. Around that bring in accordion, clomping mechanical percussion, what could be a child’s toy, trumpet samples, keyboards and unidentifiable creaking, fast-cutting between tiny events so that the song is constantly alive and unpredictable. ‘Bruyant qu’brillant’ also feels like it belongs to a longer phrase like “aussi bruyant que brillant” – “as noisy as it is brilliant”. That sums up Practice Chanter beautifully.
Tracklist:
Media Report:
Genre: alternative folk, art pop, experimental
Source: CD
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
