WILD CLASSICAL MUSIC ENSEMBLE
TOUT VA BIEN SE PASSER (BORN BAD)
In current times, how should mental disability be dealt with in an unrestrained, open-minded way? How can we take on this difference not as a barrier but as an opportunity? By directly confronting its creative force and abounding energy.
And what better place for this than on a stage, where disability ceases to be a "negative" and becomes a "positive", finally revealing exceptionally strong human beings, without any blinders or artifices.
From experimental group Les Harry's, to hip-hop collective Choolers Division, to the multifaceted projects of Atelier Méditerranée (now BRUT POP), many are the initiatives that have explored this channel in recent years, arousing the interest of an audience not always prepared for the intensity of such a world.
One of the most memorable initiatives being at the Sur Les Rails mini-festival, created by Atelier Méditerranée in Paris in 2014.
When a handful of lucky few got to discover the Wild Classical Music Ensemble: Linh Pahm, Johan Geenens, Wim Decoene and Sebastien Faidherbe, four mentally disabled persons, led by the Belgian musician and violin-maker Damien Magnette.
That evening they delivered a brutal, wild and Promethean concert to a stunned audience.
However one question remained unanswered: how to translate such a physical and visceral experience onto a record? And should it even be done? The group's first album that was released in confidentiality on Sub Rosa, had gone under the radar and no one seemed to know how to approach it.
Yet, no less than six labels (including Born Bad and Humpty Dumpty) grappled to put out Tapping Is Clapping in 2015, a new LP full of fire and fury, a record of an "other" category, dispersing any skepticism and echoing this quote from Celine's Journey to the End of the Night: "The great fatigue of existence is perhaps, in sum, only the enormous difficulty one assumes in order to remain reasonable for twenty years, forty years, even longer; in order not to be simply, profoundly, oneself that is to say filthy, atrocious, absurd." And if in 2019 you still haven't dared to let yourself be hammered by the Wild Classical Musical Ensemble's steamroller, rest assured: the time to catch-up his here with Tout Va Bien Se Passer (Everything will be alright), the ensemble's third record together and from far its most accessible yet.
But careful, this isn't a sort of lull, far from it - as evidenced by the exceptional "Bande De", a furious symphony of curses on which Fabrice, the singer of Frustration, stirs up an already stifling atmosphere.
It's rather a convergence, a rebalancing of flows, and more accessible material. Making your trip to this parallel dimension more colorful and hallucinated.
Orchestrated by Damien Magnette's original instruments (percussion bass, melodica from outer space, devious microphones, effect pedals transformed into a theremin), specifically designed for each member of the group.
A trip full of dizzying earthquakes and triumphant storms, populated by jelly-like Talking Heads ("Trainstation") and damaged Devos ("Autofile"), where you will dance to lunar punk ("Carapace") and screaming robot-rock ("Ik Ben Blij").
Hang on to the brush, we're removing the ladder. Do not worry. Everything will be alright.
Lelo Jimmy Batista