The ecstatic pulsations of Anne Paceo

Records 03.05.2022

Since the origins of humanity, music has communicated with the beyond and addressed natural and supernatural forces. An art of mastering time, it confronts death and dialogues with the spirits and gods in all cultures. In her latest album, S.H.A.M.A.N.E.S, Anne Paceo offers her own interpretation of these extraordinary faculties, drawn from rituals around the world as well as from her own personal journey. She delivers a bewitching record with a thousand carefully assembled flavours, where trance and ecstasy are never far away.

The album focuses on voice and percussion: the musician has observed that this is the driving force behind most of the traditions she has studied. Her own voice joins those of Marion Rampal andIsabel Sörling for hypnotic harmonies and incantatory formulas, not necessarily in the service of a text (five texts out of the twelve tracks that make up the record). She integrates percussionist Benjamin Flament into her ensemble, with his flock of instruments and sound effects, metallophones (bowls, gongs, slats) but also xylophones (the balafon sounds on "Here and Everywhere"). The drummer synchronises her own rhythms with the gears of these multicoloured percussion instruments, in the service of a motoric entirely dedicated to letting go, because the ceremonies she wishes to evoke are also frequently based on repetitive formulas that lead to trance.

The team is still composed of two other faithful companions: saxophonist Christophe Panzani, whose volutes and arabesques offer a subtle counterpoint to the aerial voices of the singers (for example on "Here and Everywhere" or "Piel"); and keyboardist Tony Paeleman, wizard of electronic sounds with his bass station and his Fender Rhodes put through the mill with numerous sound effects ("Wide Awake"), but also pianist on several tracks on the record ("Reste un oiseau", "Mirages", "Wishes", "Healing"...). Anne Paceo also adds the n'goni to her expressive palette, as on "Reste un oiseau", a track where Panzani is also heard on bass clarinet, anchoring the rhythm to the earth.

Trance, ecstasy, meditation, hypnosis, mystical prayer... the many subtleties of these altered states of consciousness, which allow dialogue with occult forces, manifest themselves in music of very different characters, which are echoed in Anne Paceo's compositions. There is temporal suspension, as in 'Mirages', through a descent on four typical flamenco chords, whose whirlwind gradually gains momentum. Sometimes, on the contrary, it is a rhythmic loop with a relentless mechanic that takes the lead of the piece, as in the short "Travelers", where the incantatory vocalisations seem to evoke some voodoo ritual from the depths of the bayous. There is even a reminder of Steve Reich's phase shifting and crystalline sounds on "From the Stars", sublimated by the sudden appearance of percussion which ends up hammering the loops with its powerful impacts.

The title S.H.A.M.A.N.E.S refers to inclusive writing and proclaims the universality of the powerful therapeutic effects of music: beyond genders, borders and cultures, the answer to our existential anguish and metaphysical questioning. A whole programme!

Guillaume Kosmicki

Photos © Sylvain Gripoix

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