Shalalalala

Description

It could be an eternal return. The return of an underground myth that the decades have failed to tarnish. It could be the long-awaited new album, the event that longtime fans no longer dared to hope for. But ‘Shalalalala’ is something entirely different. In 2024, this record by Theo Hakola has imposed itself on its creator as an imperative. A necessity more than a choice, to be taken or left. - - This new album fits seamlessly into the long lineage of what the American poet in Paris has done best since the 80s. Rock litanies with a charm that is now recognized as outdated and embraced without complex. The guitars are American as desired, the violin (from the eternal accomplice Bénédicte Villain) is never far away, the lyrics still have that sharp bite, all in a false nonchalance, and of course, the characteristic singing, balancing between casualness and emotion, continues to flow from one end to the other of these eight songs, like the river on the penultimate of them. - - Always on the fringes of the political, even when he speaks of love, Theo Hakola captures the issues of his time as he always has, presenting with as much acuity as humor his offbeat view of the world. An expert in the subtle art of enumeration (The DOG Song, The LOVE IS Song...), he embraces the universe with fervor, knows how to reinvent the myth of love at first sight and the femme fatale (The BURNING WOMAN Song) while pinning down the great criminals of the era (The RUSSIAN WARSHIP Song). Alone or almost at the helm of the instrumentation, the man of letters and theater is accompanied here by several iconic singers, Brisa Roché, Lesley Woods (ex Au Pairs), and Frida Faudot in the visual creation, whose sculpture gives us a glimpse of the artist in deconstruction. All of this is likely not by chance. - - He may be labeled anachronistic. It is highly likely that this label does not shake the inexhaustible Hakola for a second, who is determinedly aiming for the construction of the immense musical heritage started by Orchestre Rouge and Passion Fodder. A fidelity to himself as a leap forward, for which we have always been grateful, and of which this new emanation appears as the obvious culmination. Anachronistic, perhaps. Timeless, without a doubt. - - In 2024, there is no need to maintain the memory of Theo Hakola. Forty years later, he is more present than ever.