Poemes Pulverises

Description

Since Le Cirque de Consolation, her second album released in 2021, an earthquake has taken place in the life of Léonie Pernet. The musician traveled to Niger to meet her paternal family, previously unknown to her. Upon returning from her trip, Léonie discovered a verse by René Char: "I took my head as one seizes a lump of salt and I literally pulverized it." This flash of insight never left her and led her to Le Poème pulvérisé, a collection by the resistance poet published in 1945. It opens with a question: "How to live without the unknown before you?" Poèmes Pulvérisés opens with an instrumental track, Brûler pour briller, where synthetic voices and electronic textures dialogue with a hypnotic orchestration that is Léonie's signature: violins are in the spotlight, and Philip Glass is never far away. We hear the voice of actress Louise Chevillotte reciting the inaugural poem of René Char's collection, "born from a well of mud and stars." The album's intention is affirmed, claiming its instrumental hybridity and the urgency of expression through poetry. Subsequently, Poèmes Pulvérisés is composed of catchy anthems such as Acid Niger, Touareg, and Paris-Brazzaville, electronic and percussive tracks asserting the desire for a world without borders. Léonie Pernet sings for the margins, the forgotten, the left behind. In the track Dispak Dispac'h, resulting from her collaboration with director Patricia Allio, the voices of undocumented people during a protest hammer the desire for justice, carried by the musician's persistent synthesizers.