South from here

Description

Winter Family is a duo composed of Ruth Rosenthal and Xavier Klaine. They met in Jaffa in 2004. Their dark, saturated, and dense music is described as "death swing," "weird wave," or "funeral pop." Their self-titled debut album (Sub Rosa - 2007) featured minimal music played by Xavier on the grand organ, harmoniums, and piano, with strict spoken word chanted by Ruth. Their second album, Red Sugar (Sub Rosa - Ici d'ailleurs - Alt. vinyl - 2011), received critical acclaim (The Village Voice, Libération, Haaretz, Pitchfork). Recorded in a church in Lorraine and a farmhouse in Sarthe where they lived for two years, this album is denser and more political, with field recordings from Jerusalem prominently featured. Winter Family then composed soundtracks for dance, cinema, and advertising (Chanel, EU), collaborating with many artists. They became associate artists at 104 in Paris. After touring the world with their documentary theater piece Jerusalem Plomb Durci - Hallucinatory Journey into an Emotional Dictatorship, they settled in Flatbush - Brooklyn. Overwhelmed by the massive energy of the Caribbean culture in their neighborhood, they began writing their new album. Block parties, community parades, and helicopter flyovers are daily occurrences. These sounds are captured for their documentary theater work and will sometimes appear in this new album. The Lotharingian mafia lends them a van, and they become movers, traveling around the New York area sometimes not knowing what they are transporting. These experiences influence the writing of their album, which they decide to call South From Here. At the end of 2012, Hurricane Sandy hits their neighborhood and floods all their equipment. They buy an old drum machine and a vintage synthesizer and discover sounds that will define the color of South From Here. Back in Paris in 2014 to perform their new nihilistic documentary theater piece No World / FPLL produced by Théâtre Vidy Lausanne, they begin mixing South From Here in a basement in Jaurès, drawing inspiration from the sound of Pierre Carré's orchestra and the reverbs of the fairground at the Foire du Trône. They record new parts of the album on tour: in the Villa Guggenheim in Kobe, Japan, or during late-night sessions of organs, voices, and absinthe in the German Temple of La Chaux-de-Fonds in Switzerland. For obscure reasons, they then decide to settle across from Banana Beach in Tel Aviv. Ruth records the album's lyrics there, attempting to translate the blindness into which Israeli society is definitively sinking. They publish the book-CD No World with artist Yochai Matos, release a cassette on the micro label Psychic Mule (US), and complete South From Here at Yehuda the carpenter, recording syrupy arrangements inspired by local weddings. The result of this long, calypso-like, and painful process is a blend of pessimism and acceptance that they summarize with the words: "Life is Beautiful." In South From Here, Ruth plays machines, drums, a drum machine, and sings. Xavier plays old organs, synthesizers, celesta, and piano. A few friends and their daughter join them here and there: Ben McConnell (drums), Fabien Lehalle (bass), Victor Gachet (snare drum), Saralei Klaine (video games and backing vocals), as well as the voices of the actors from Chekhov's The Seagull by Arthur Nauzyciel (Adèle Haenel, Dominique Reymond, Laurent Poitrenaux, Marie-Sophie Ferdane, etc.).