La Colère de la Boue

Charkha's second outing, La Colère de la Boue (The Anger of Mud), explores our complex, emotional connection to the natural landscape. Inspired by the destructive impacts of modern agriculture on rural Brittany, the album draws together eight busy compositions by flautist Gurvant Le Gac. A sextet of musicians, the band feature Le Gac's flute along with oud, double bass, tenor saxophone, percussion and vocals. Their Arabic-influenced sound is decidedly avant-garde – an improvisational, polyrhythmic trance, described by Charkha as jazz mod all(jazz otherwise). Vocalist Faustine Audebert adds to this musical texture, singing a selection of poems by the likes of Léon Damas and Édouard Glissant, most of which are translated into the Breton language. While her eerie tones are not in themselves poor, they often clash with the musical compositions resulting in a somewhat jarring outcome. The album also suffers from an overload of choppy melodic repetitions, which, while probably intended to put the listener in a trance, end up verging on the tedious. In fact, Charkha's music is at its most poignant on tracks such as ‘Ma Langue’, when they hold back and give us time and space to appreciate their intriguing melodic explorations.