Vinyl chronicle in manifesto form. Observation: 2023 is the year of a war that gets bogged down and forgotten (Ukraine), of a violent exodus that doesn't mobilize (Armenia), of a growing sense of eco-anxiety that indifferences the powerful, and of inflation that affects every wallet. And as Victor Hugo would say, the list goes on and on.

So - a precarious but necessary solution - it's high time contemporary music rehabilitated emotion and embraced it with serenity. Being moved makes us emphatic and connects us to reality. It's paradoxical for some artists to be so fascinated by all the hottest technological tools, and at the same time to be so concerned by a return to naturalness, simplicity and a clear and assertive ecological attitude. Musicians! Let's be natural and plunge into emotion, forget Deleuze and our explanatory notes, and open up to feelings! Four vinyls where emotion is the law

Babx - Une maison avec un piano dedans - Buda musique
On this recording, the sublime is either brushed or caressed. But caressing is more appropriate in this solo piano album (his first) by composer, singer, performer and producer Babx, whose real name is David Babin. Here, the musical and family spectres that lurked in his childhood piano are summoned. "It's not impossible that if you open the door to this album, you might see the ghosts of Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Chaplin, Mal Waldron, the old mining bands of northern England, a N'Goni player in Mali, Nina Simone, Mary Lou Williams, Ravel, Schubert and more.... " You can hear all that, yes, but above all you can hear an inimitable personal touch, a magnificent touch and a sharp, tasteful sensibility. The disc's opening piece La maison avec un piano dedans is a long alla Mahler melody declaimed to oneself like a memory, running one or two fingers mechanically over a dusty, forgotten keyboard. A magnificent overture. Lilibet's procession is as beautiful as a Bill Evans ballad(Danny Boy is not far off); each track has its own atmosphere, carrying its own personal evocations. Pure, sincere emotion.   

Cassandra Miller - Traveller Song/Thanksong- Black Truffle
Here again the sublime is present, and here too we step into the past. London-based Canadian composer Cassandra Miller, professor of composition at the Guildhall, has always been fascinated by music from the past and mythical recordings (Kurt Cobain or Maria Callas, for example). She is also interested in the ancient and subtle art of transcription. From Bach, who transcribed his contemporaries, to the present day, the question is the same: how to give voice to those who are no longer with us, and how to give them a sensitive contemporaneity? Here, in her first vinyl, is Cassandra Miller's art in two long pieces: Traveller Song, based on a song by an anonymous Sicilian cart-driver from the 1950s, captured by Alan Lomax and Diego Carpitella, in which the composer recorded herself vocally, then superimposed and transformed the whole with a piano and the London sextet Plus-Minus Ensemble. Hypnotic. The second piece, Thanksong, is inspired by the last movement of Beethoven's Quartet No. 15 Op. 132, performed by the Quatuor Bozzini with the complicity of singer Juliet Fraser. Beethoven's writing is triturated, elongated, repeated, as if it were a distant reminiscence played out in slow motion. A plunge into the sensitive

Alexis Paul - Sang de pigeon - Armures provisoires
A life out of competition. This is probably the aesthetic lifeline of musician Alexis Paul, the nomad of the barrel organ. For years, he has been literally criss-crossing the world, capturing music, motifs and snippets of life, then putting them on perforated cardboard and spinning them on the cylinder of his custom-built instrument. In this album Sang de pigeon Alexis Paul mixes his two favorite instruments (barrel organ and classical guitar), both recorded in the only iron church in Europe (the other is in Turkey): the church of Sainte-Barbe in Crusnes, Meurthe-et-Moselle, " lent for the occasion by its owner, who wanted to bring the place back to life". He also confides that "this record evokes the inner journey, the overcoming of suffering and, through its recording setting, the epic of the instrument that went beyond churches and courts to reach the people. What could be more intriguing than to have it reborn and sounding in a miners' church?
Eight tracks of diverse inspiration (hints of Philip Glass can sometimes be heard, folkloric recollections of real or fantasized journeys). Alexis Paul's raw emotion is evident in every second: the unusual blend of these two instruments underlines the melodic (and rhythmic) fragility of a music that doesn't belong to any category and is hard to label. In the end, it's music that escapes the noise of the world and makes us feel good every day.

Laraaji & Kramer - Baptismal (Ambient Symphony n° 1) - Shimmy Disc
Submersion. Immersion. Ascension. This is the three-track program for the first duo album by musicians Larraji (undisputed master of the ambient scene, launched by Brian Eno with his legendary album Ambient 3: Day of Radiance) and Kramer (experimental New York musician, multi-hatted producer and collaborator with John Zorn, among others). These two long-time friends had always wanted to compose together. The idea of christening the album was to take the listener into a musical elsewhere, to cut them off from the world, immerse them in the sound and make them forget everything that surrounds and hinders them. The album was built on mutual exchanges: Larraji, playing the zither, would send pieces to Kramer, who would rework them, then send them back, and so on. It's an album born of solitude and distance. At no point did the two musicians see each other physically. As in the days of confinement. Peaceful, intelligent, serene music in which emotion is not imposed or forced: isn't ambient music the kind of music that plunges us abstractly into our own emotions without provoking any particular one?

François Mardirossian