Oiseaux-Tempête‘s amazing 2017 album AL​-​’AN ! الآن (And your night is your shadow — a fairy​-​tale piece of land to make our dreams)) (Sub Rosa) chronicled the Paris-based collectives’ time in Lebanon. On June 15th the group returns with their sixth release on the Sub Rosa label طرب TARAB. Translating from literary Arabic as euphoria, secular exaltation, ecstasy, the album collects together live recordings from their AL-‘AN! tour.
Beginning with a residency at l’Autre Canal in Nancy, and a stop at the Le Guess Who? festival in Utrecht, the band continued on to Canada where they performed with Suuns and Jerusalem In My Heart in Montreal and Toronto. Traveling back across France with Jerusalem In My Heart in tow, and on to Brussels and Berlin, Oiseaux-Tempête completed the circle with a stop at the Irtijal festival in Beirut. Recorded live by Romain Poirier & Benjamin Pagier, طرب TARAB finds founding Parisian members Frédéric D. Oberland and Stéphane Pigneul joined by Mondkopf, G.W.Sok from The Ex, Sylvain Joasson of Mendelson, the videographers As Human Pattern, as well as the Lebanese musicians Charbel Haber, Abed Kobeissy and Ali El Hout (aka Two Or The Dragon).
On the upcoming record the group deconstructs, reconfigures, and expands on Al-‘An! studio sessions to give the songs new life through their improvised live performances. Oiseaux-Tempête’s 2017 video for “Carnaval,” directed by As Human Pattern (aka Gregoire Orio & Gregoire Couvert), provided excellent insight into the band as a touring act, and now we have the track “Palindrome Series” as further sonic evidence of their power in live performance. From its initially ambient opening, Oiseaux-Tempête coalesces into a throbbing maelstrom before their post-rock experimentation launches them into the outer reaches of the stratosphere. Combining free rock with analog electronics and traditional instruments, “Palindrome Series” finds the band transforming their introspective inclinations into a rollicking musical adventure of pure force.
