Created in 2012 by multi-instrumentalists Frédéric D. Oberland and Stéphane Pigneul, OISEAUX-TEMPÊTE [wazo-tɑ̃ .pɛːt] is a constantly evolving collective that, embracing the freedom of improvisation, transcends borders and cultures, straddling the intersection where amplified music (post / kraut / free-rock, jazz-punk, avant-garde, experimental electronics) collides and finds common ground - a refuge. Sensitive to the beating of hearts, cinematic beats and explosions of materials, they embrace the community of collaboration, regularly inviting to the studio and tour friends like the electronic producer Mondkopf, the Dutch performer G.W.Sok (The Ex), drummers Jean-Michel Pirès (Bruit Noir, The Married Monk), Sylvain Joasson (Mendelson), Ben McConnell (Beach House, Marissa Nadler), British bass clarinettist Gareth Davis, contemporary ondist Christine Ott and musicians Charbel Haber & The Bunny Tylers, Sharif Sehnaoui, Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, Two Or The Dragon ...
At the end of November 2017, OISEAUX-TEMPÊTE flew to Canada at the invitation of Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart). The program for the quintet (Frédéric, Stéphane, Jean-Michel, Mondkopf & G.W.Sok): two concerts in Montreal and Toronto in support of the collaborative project SUUNS & Jerusalem In My Heart (specially reformed for the occasion), fraternal encounters buried beneath the Canadian snow, and to finish, a mysterious two-day studio session in Montreal's legendary Hotel2Tango. Radwan shifts from the recording controls to the buzuk, the spiralling strings of Jessica Moss (A Silver Mount Zion) a welcome surprise. With usual urgency, OISEAUX-TEMPÊTE rushes with joy towards the invisible outcome.
The fourth studio album and seventh release on the Belgian avant-garde label Sub Rosa, 'From Somewhere Invisible' (2019) embraces the new. Leaving aside for a while the logbooks of long journeys and the field recordings of the previous albums, the music of OISEAUX-TEMPÊTE unfolds as a twilight and prophetic orchestra around G.W.Sok's punctuated voice. The poems of Mahmoud Darwish, Ghayath Almadhoun and Yu Jian question the modern man and his double, the strange and foreign, the fragmented real, the violence, society and its mirror. The eyes we hide behind, the ones we should open. These intimate compasses which can make us rise together in the midst of shrouded ruins; there is always a black raven to defy the horizon.
Edited and mixed between Montreal and Paris, produced by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Big Brave, Matana Roberts, SUUNS), 'From Somewhere Invisible' summons the fever of experimentation and the powerful sound of the game coming together in the service of a luxuriant and psychedelic drift. Synthetic brass meets hammered rhythms, string electrics with cracked electronics, saxophone cries and laughter at a pulsing and seminal bass.
In this moment of change, there are always the flashes of light, musical communion and the collective hypnosis grasped between ideas. From one sea to another, the gathering sound, the gathering glow, comes together. Desire, the great fire, at the four corners dancing like fireflies, ready to open the map of the world.
