REST' LA MALOYA - Edition Delux limitée (vinyl)

Description

An absolute icon of traditional music from Reunion Island, maloya, Alain Peters is covered by all of today's Reunion artists. He is behind a personal, unique, and universal work, now released on vinyl for the first time. From the age of thirteen, he began playing in a dance band, then threw himself into the effervescence of the hippie and disco years with groups bearing evocative names like Les Lords, Pop Decadence, and Satisfaction. Towards the end of the 1970s, he had a decisive encounter with a Reunion poet, Jean Albany, and adopted Creole as his writing language and the island's music, maloya. Alain Peters then founded a new group, Carrousel, whose repertoire was nourished by traditional rhythms and more modern influences. The adventure would only last a year: his father's death plunged him further into alcoholism. The group broke up, and Alain descended into marginality. Using and abusing zamal (local cannabis) and alcohol, he lived as a semi-vagrant, singing his misery and profound sadness through chance encounters. His songs are characterized by a melancholic voice, very rhythmic guitar playing on a takamba, a small Sahelian guitar, and bittersweet lyrics sung in Creole. A few recordings from this period survive. They are thanks to Jean Marie Pirot, a passionate teacher who, in 1981, improvised as a recording studio director. For a year, in his apartment, he had the patience (sessions never lasted very long) to capture about ten marvels – track after track, as Peters played all the instruments. These are the remastered recordings, along with a few others captured here and there, that are now found on vinyl for the first time. He died of a heart attack in 1995 at the age of 43. "Alain, he is immortal," Danyel Waro confides simply. "He left many beautiful things. He is a poetic and musical value. He is someone I greatly respect. He was a rebel who could not fit into reality. He was both very common and extraordinary. He sang his reality, his abyss. He was a wanderer. He is ageless. I have known him to be dead for a long time, but he continues to be in us." The album contains a selection of 12 tracks from Alain Peters' repertoire, inserted in a thick sleeve (replica). The notes and texts were written by Mazzoleni.