Brûlez ce coeur Les Momies de Palerme

Description

Les Momies De Palerme is the Montreal-based duo of Marie Davidson (violin, synths, vocals) and Xarah Dion (synths, vocals). We first heard from Xarah as a mail-order customer years ago, and then received the occasional long hand-written letter from her soon after she moved to Montreal from Quebec City, introducing herself more fully and ruminating on her sense of displacement and re-orientation. She remained unknown to us except in name, until a couple of years later when we were struck by an otherworldly performance by Les Momies de Palerme and realised Xarah was one half of the duo. Marie and Xarah both have gone on to make many musical connections in the city, including membership in Sam Shalabi's Land Of Kush orchestra. They are also among the founders of La Brique, an artist-run DIY space that hosts regular loft shows of all sorts.

Brûlez ce coeur is the first official full-length from Les Momies, following the group's L'amour sincère CD-R self-released in 2007. Les Momies create an uncategorisable sound built up from a core of keyboards, processed violin and voices: slow-paced without being ponderous; synthetic without being retro; methodically restrained and strangely devotional without being easily tagged as ethereal or gothic. Brûlez ce coeur is often like an ersatz sacred music: canticles on acid, full of strange quirks and avant sounds while remaining soothing, meditative and incantatory.

Recorded at David Bryant's (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Set Fire To Flames) studio The Pines in Montreal, Brûlez ce coeur takes advantage of the fantastic acoustics of this space and Bryant's fine collection of spring and plate reverbs. The album also rallies contributions from notable guest players like Sam Shalabi (oud), Luke Dawson (contrebasse) and David Bryant himself (electric guitar). The results are immersive, disorienting and gently unmoored; it is hard to know where to plot this record in any historical timeline, geographic place or stylistic continuum.

Credits

Les Momies de Palerme is Marie Davidson and Xarah Dion

Guests

Dave Bryant: Guitar
Luke Dawson: Contrebasse
Liz Lima: Clarinette
Osama Shalabi: Oud
Nathan Ward: percussion


All material recorded by the artists except Les Momies De Palerme, recorded by Dave Bryant at The Pines and mixed by Dave Bryant at The Pines (tracks 1, 6) and Radwan Moumneh at Hotel2Tango. All material mastered by Harris Newman at Grey Market.