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"In Oiseaux-Tempête, Frédéric D. Oberland and Stéphane Pigneul have chosen a name, a call from the sea, of almost totemic quality. . . . AL-'AN! ('Now!' in Arabic) is 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? . . . Building something together, bearing witness, creating sense, being a part of the world, refusing the catastrophe. Rather, grabbing hold of the present, cradling it and letting it breath. . . . This was the attempt of Frédéric D. Oberland, Stéphane Pigneul, and Ben McConnell with Oiseaux-Tempête (SR 381CD/LP), their first album, an opening chapter published in 2013. . . . Following the energetic post-rock of this first, self-titled album, came Ütopiya? (SR 396CD/LP, 2015). A far more poignant piece of work, lyrical, yet with the roughness of the free music it was inspired by. Interweaving their music with the photographic images of Yusuf Sevincli and the words of poets Nazim Hikmet and Tarkovsky, Oiseaux-Tempête continued their Mediterranean voyage, this time further East. . . . With AL-'AN!, 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 realizing both the immersive and also the total physicality on the record. . . . 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. . . . 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." --Alexandre Francois Features Tamer Abu Ghazaleh and G. W. Sok. CD version includes a bonus track.
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