L’Ocelle Mare: Thomas Bonvalet (FR) + Linus Vandewolken (B) + Chouk Bwa Libète (HTI)
L’Ocelle Mare / Thomas Bonvalet (FR) : banjo électrifié, orgue à bouche, métronome mécanique à cloche, plaques d’harmonica, frappements de pieds et de mains, diapasons, sifflements, harmonica, grelots. Le projet solitaire de Thomas Bonvalet a d’abord été centré sur la guitare classique, prenant des formes courtes, dynamiques et abruptes et se limitant exclusivement aux possibilités acoustiques de l’instrument . Une posture radicale constamment menacée de se mettre dans l’impasse, se voyant contrainte à la métamorphose et au mouvement. L’instrument est ainsi devenu de moins en moins identifiable, absorbant et déviant de leur usage les objets sonores présents en marge (métronomes, diapasons, etc.), intégrant le souffle et les sons résultants du geste instrumental premier, se fragmentant et tentant de faire apparaître une nouvelle figure fugace. L’amplification a elle aussi pris peu à peu une place essentielle dans ce nouvel instrumentarium/organisme. Il reste cependant cette même voix sous-jacente et cette grande considération pour les détails, la tension et les possibles points de surgissement.
Linus Vandewolken (B)
Two years after a first public performance on top of a slag heap in Liège & over a year since the release of the acclaimed »Hommel op Aarde«, LINUS VANDEWOLKEN takes us to »Flandra Transgreso«, a submerged land of introspection & melancholy.
In the far reaches of Niemandaal, political, social & personal climates have changed... the water is coming to flood the Earth. The tuning becomes minor, the voice & flutes disappear. We hear the longing for lost friends, the desire for a land where the governments respect their people, the search for a grain of hope.
https://hotelrustique.bandcamp.com/album/hr1608-flandra-transgreso
Chouk Bwa Libète (HTI)
Chouk Bwa” means tree stump, a reference to the words of Toussaint Louverture, the leader of the Haitian Revolution in the late 18th century, as he prepared to face exile in France: “By overthrowing me, they have only felled the trunk of the tree of liberty in Saint-Domingue, but it will grow again, because its roots are deep and numerous”. So Chouk Bwa Libète are, in a sense, the roots of liberty. “We chose that name because, via music, we fight for the freedom of our people,” explains Sambaton (Jean-Claude Dorvil) on the telephone from Gonaïves, a key centre of voodoo in Haiti.
Mention voodoo and people straightaway think of Haiti. This kind of music is the Caribbean island’s most important cultural representative, but it is much more than that: “Voodoo is ritual music, a religion that comes from our African ancestors. We are the heirs to the Dahomey of Benin and to Vodun culture.” The Kingdom of Dahomey was an ancient African kingdom located in the south-west of what is now Benin. Many slaves from that region were taken to the French colony of Saint-Domingue, now known as Haiti.
Chouk Bwa Libète is made up of four percussionists, two female dancers, and its leader and composer Sambaton on vocals and on the fer (an iron bar), a sort of bell that announces the different rhythms to call up the spirits. “We have lots of rhythms and a total of nine drums."