Orchestre Univers

Two years after his successful Univers-Île album [a Top of the World album review in #132], Jeremy Labelle, a forerunner of La Réunion's electronic music scene, has brought out an ambitious project. Recorded live during a recent open-air concert on the island, his new opus is the result of close collaboration with musicians from the Orchestre National de la Réunion, forming the Orchestre Univers, with a string quartet, a wood trio and four percussionists together with Labelle on his laptop. Still connected to the ternary rhythms of maloya, emblem of the island's Creole culture, this totally instrumental work takes on a new dimension, pushing the barriers of local traditional music.

Clearly influenced by minimalist composers such as Steve Reich and Terry Riley, Labelle has created a sound odyssey. From quiet contemplative movements in ‘Émotion du Vide’, building up to a frenetic trance with superposing rhythms and sounds, climaxing like a telluric explosion in ‘Oublie-Voie-Espace-Dimension’ and ‘O’, a Brazilian batucada polyrhythmic feast. This is followed by a return to calm after the storm with pieces including the call of a whale and sounds of other sub-aquatic life, in ‘Stase, Différence et Répétition’. A serene final sequence (‘La Vie’), features Indian slide guitarist Prakash Sontakke, and includes the emotional pulsation of the roulèr (bass drum), present throughout the album.