COUTEAU - HAUTE FORME (2 vinyls)

Description

Super Parquet, modern ambassador of Auvergne folklore? No. Super Parquet, neo-trad fusionist? Electronic renovator of a heritage threatened with extinction? Still no. Since its beginnings in 2014, Super Parquet claims nothing and allows itself everything: joy, dance, sweat, trance, earthquakes and, above all, celebration. Super Parquet originated from a clash of cultures. Antoine Cognet (banjo), Louis Jacques (vocals, cabrette, bagpipes) and Léo Petoin (the keystone of the off-stage sound) are children of the popular bal and traditional Auvergne music – the earthy songs or three-beat bourrées option. Julien Baratay (machines and vocals) and Simon Drouhin (drone box (BAB), synthesizer), on the other hand, built themselves through electronic tinkering, the mud of techno raves, the telluric boom-boom of influenced dancefloors. As with the emergence of a new continent, their meeting in Lyon and the birth of this five-headed mutant initially seems like a happy accident. But it is precisely thanks to this extremely fertile tension that Super Parquet has, since its beginnings, managed to produce an infinite and completely innovative musical dialogue. For the members of Super Parquet have far more in common than it seems: a very strong taste for repetitive motifs, dance rhythms, trance-inducing ternary beats, drones, micro-variations of timbre and sonic experiments, preferably psychedelic. After a much-noticed EP and eponymous album, Super Parquet is now back with 'Couteau - Haute Forme', a double album that plays with codes and defies expectations. 'Couteau' is the visible part of the Super Parquet volcano, a tech-noise eruption fueled by the intensity of live performance, four tracks drawn from the traditional repertoire of the Massif Central. All from the public domain – regional archives or collection missions undertaken since the early 20th century – and intended to return there, here the bourrées à couteaux, farewell waltzes and other wedding marches are given a new life. Electronic. Transcendental. Always popular. But the yang being nothing without its yin, with 'Haute Forme', Super Parquet creates a surprise and reveals itself in a completely new light by offering here a piece from the high spheres bordering on ambient (divided into two sides due to the technical constraint of the vinyl medium), a kind of Auvergne raga that clearly evokes the minimalist genius of a Terry Riley from the 'In C' era. On side B, Super Parquet records a bourrée of its own making, in turn renewing the repertoire that has inspired it since its beginnings, perhaps outlining the contours of a new tradition. All that remains is to let it blaze live now, at parties, festivals, raves, balls, squats, in the village square... In short, in community. Ultimately, it doesn't matter, as long as Super Parquet. --- Jeanne Lacaille ---