Woven, fourth album by the most unique of contemporary singers, Marion Rampal, was released on the Les Rivières Underground label, named in honor of the songwriter Pierre Barouh. Twelve fluid songs, swaying or swinging, it depends, intertwined or woven to perfection. Something blue that looks like a wing… A crossfade with such clear diction, in French as in English, against a backdrop of subtle or sound orchestrations (Matthis Pascaud, guitar and ideas).
Pierre-François Blanchard (piano), Sébastien Llado (trombone, conches), Simon Tailleu (double bass), Raphaël Chassin (drums): co-creating partners, all embarked with their consenting bodies in an unnamed universe. Cover photo (Alice Lemarin) and graphic designer (Rémi Poncet) right in the tone: “I try to do things until the end…” Not only does Marion Rampal try, she succeeds.
“Personal Folklore”
From Woven, this poetic collection with supple melodies, a very controlled voice, especially when things are hanging by a thread, exudes a reassuring strangeness. A constant trouble, too. It reminds you of a lot of things, and it looks like nothing.
Let’s be clear: it doesn’t look like anything or anyone other than her, Marion Rampal, a tall, beautiful woman with serious features. Gleaner of melodies picked up while traveling, on the roads of Louisiana and the “gestures of the blues”. Ingenuously in search, but with what stubbornness, of what Matthis Pascaud, the producer, calls his “personal folklore”.
Woven ? Blossom ? A semblance of appeasement watched over by melancholy. The melancholy thwarted by the voice, the setting, a precision without the slightest stiffness. The art of bare simplicity. Her very personal universe is only held together by her own language. Martin Sarrazac, his companion, has designed a show for children. From Ronsard to Emily Dickinson passing by Henri Michaux, she loves all poetry, without any need to specify it.
This immediate language, offbeat, yet clear as possible, this language, “it’s the one we talk about in The island of mixed songs ». “I call it ‘the language of sunken hearts’. This is the name I gave to the funny French that I started to speak in 2016 with the album Main Blue, – and before, for any song that I started to improvise…”
Main Blue, bursting with voices encountered along the way – Creoles, Cajuns, Amerindians, Bretons – she developed it with Pierre-François Blanchard and drummer Anne Paceo, a loyal partner. This one invites itself in the middle of Woven. The song is called other suns. The language of hearts sunk in glory, invented down to the natural…
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