LE TEMPS DES AMES (double vinyle)

Description

FREEDOM ACCORDING TO KENT - A TRULY REMARKABLE ALBUM A voice, a piano, new songs. “Le Temps des âmes” is a dialogue between Kent and Marc Haussmann's piano, with the legendary Ian Caple at the helm from start to finish. An adventure of music, words, and freedom, in which Kent lays himself bare and sings his truth about love, pleasure, and the passage of time. And he delivers a magnificent version of a long-unreleased Jacques Brel song, “Avec élégance”. The process was, as Kent says, “long and spontaneous”. He refuses to retrace his steps, to record what he has already heard from others, or to rediscover overly familiar sensations through writing. So, for a year, he worked on new songs, experimenting with successive directions. Then there's Berlin. For years, he has been familiar with this city in perpetual artistic eruption. Last June, he was offered two piano-vocal concerts at Corbo, a cabaret in the heart of the Kreuzberg district. The pianist's name is Marc Haussmann, and it's a miracle. “I felt a freedom I haven't experienced on stage in years. I then stopped asking myself any questions about the album,” says Kent. Marc Haussmann comes to Paris in August. In ten days, they demo about fifteen songs. He wants to record quickly. Rodolphe Burger offers him his studio, in the heart of the Alsatian countryside, with its old early 20th-century Pleyel piano and its space where recording can only be done live. At the controls will be Ian Caple (Tindersticks, Bashung, Tricky). The whole album goes “from a whisper to expressionism,” from almost conventional forms to dizzying musical meteorology. Kent sifted through notebooks where song ideas had accumulated for years, traversed moods and pleasures, worries and daydreams. He wouldn't like it if people said he was wise. We'll use a synonym. We'll say he is free.