Slacken and sparkle

Slacken and sparkle

≡ November 2019 ≡

When you are creating, you do not bother to know whether the sparkle will last long or hit the target, whether it will be a flash in the pan or a time blaze, a soft glint with a slow path, a fire out of control or an innermost burning.

The buoyant drummer Sylvain Lemêtre has been taking hold of the imaginary musical verse of my Funghimiracolette since 2016 and he carries the flame on stage with a Maravaccione mastery. Sonore boréale is the name of the show he clotters and upends and that you may discover at Atelier du Plateau in Paris on the 7th.

At the Maison de la Poésie in Paris on the 8th, to slacken with fire and celebrate laziness with Thomas Baumgartner, precious voice of France Culture and Radio Nova, insatiable researcher of still time, who will tell us how to do nothing -according to his book’s title nonetheless well done- along with Florence Loiret Caille while I slack off the six chords of my jazzmaster for the occasion.

Sparkles of electrical arch on the 9th. Tightening the six chords back up, adding four more, plugging the drums in and fire!, towards Ardèche and La Presqu’île in Annonay to joyfully meet again Suzy LeVoid and Lucie Antunes for an exploding MellaNoisEscape gig.

A year ago, with BAUM, we released our Ici-bas album to feed the sweet Fauré’s fire and keep alive the burning from poems of Prudhomme, Gautier or Verlaine. We will take up the flag again for new dates beginning on a dream Sunday, on the 24th at the Auditorium in Lyon, invited by Étienne Daho who will sing the wonder, and also with Élise Caron, John Greaves, Piers Faccini, Kyrie Kristmanson, Himko Paganotti, Albin de la Simone and Rosemary Standley.

On the 26th, minus some voices but plus some others, we’ll perform at Volcan, Scène Nationale du Havre with again Élise Caron, John Greaves, Kyrie Kristmanson, Himiko Paganotti, Albin de la Simone but also Hugh Coltman and Sandra Nkaké.

I’m reading right now that the wonderful documentary film by Pauline Jardel about our story with Fauré, Fauré, Baum et les autres, will be on screen in the presence of the director on the 9th at 5pm in Veuzain-sur-Loire multimedia library, on the 29th at 8pm in Blois at Abbé Grégoire library, and on the 30th at 5.30pm in Lussault-sur-Loire Pôle XXI.

In between these balms, before the Volcan, a stop in Paris for a set with Claire ingrid Cottanceau at the heart of Icelandic glaciers, of geysers and magma grasped with the grace of the photographer Sophie Hatier, on the 25th at 7.30pm in the art gallery Le Trapèze (19 rue du Poitou, 75003).

A la plancha, the original fire running under the silicium chips of Ersatz on the 14th and 15th in Brest, on the 16th in Meung-sur-Loire, then in Spain in Alcala de Henares on the 22nd and 23rd, and in Madrid on the 26th and 27th.

The hazard lights of the Fils, on the 5th and 6th in Poitiers, on the 8th in Annecy and from the 27th to the 30th in Quimper.

The late father, Qui l’a tué ? on the 5th and 6th in Sartrouville.

Snaking among all this, the living water of Acqua Alta will be cooling down Lieusaint on the 7th and 8th, Arles on the 21st and 22nd, and Fouesnant on the 29th.

Let’s build fires, let our sparkles travel, light and heat up any place they can.

Olivier Mellano