Noir Anima

Labelle is Jérémy Labelle, from La Réunion. On this third solo album he’s set out to formulate the fledgling genre of ‘electronic maloya’, resolved to fuse ancient traditional folk music with keyboards, samples and beats. If the listener wasn’t alerted to this intention, they might not grasp this nature while spinning Noir Anima, but that doesn’t prevent the album from being a solid release. Primed with this information, we can hear a core percussion network that includes the shaker-sound of the kayamb, and a deep bass drum feel that skips and stutters, both of these covered with a lightly distressed buzz. Labelle also works with mandolin or harp sounds on the album, and the results are not totally dance floor, but more actively ambient. The record’s gentle opening track, ‘Le Fil Vers’, is single-fodder, with narration-vocals from artist and spoken-word poet Hasawa, and a backdrop of twinkling bell-sound keys. The other 11 tracks are instrumental, and generally faster, in an auto-meets-organic manner. There’s also a repetitive quality to Labelle’s music that’s closer to systems music than, let’s say, techno-trance. The percussion is very well-behaved, but there are some pieces towards Noir Anima’s close that push harder, with ‘Instant Clair Intemporel’ and ‘Turn’ upping the acoustic-sounding beats in the mix, and the maloya elements becoming a touch more frisky.