We’re excited to present new music from Réunion based artist Labelle. It’s been six years since Labelle left France to return to his fathers homeland. His new album focuses around rediscovering his roots and exploring the deep hypnotic sounds of the islands native Maloya music.
“The deeper I dig into the detail of my culture and my Réunion history, the more it opens me up to the rest of the world,” he explains. “By focusing on the local, you always end up with the global.” Resembling his adopted city of Saint-Denis his work is nourished by a unique blend of African (balafon, kora), Indian (bell, percussion) and western (slide-guitar, sampler) instruments.
Labelle’s music has been coined “electro maloya” for his use of subtle synths and digital rhythms intertwined with traditional maloya sounds – a term which Labelle accepts even if the connotations may be too simplistic a label for the music. Maloya is one of the two main styles of Réunion Island, sung in the island’s Creole dialect and rooted in the music and culture of African slaves and indentured labourers from the Indian sub- continent. If the roots of electro, like those of maloya, go back to slavery and drumming, the two genres also share other aspects: dance, trance, and the instinct to go beyond any standardised framework.
The album is titled “Univers-île” and is his second studio album after “Ensemble” (2013), and his debut EP with Kaang. It features international collaborations with the likes of famous Indian guitarist Prakash Sontakke, singer Zanmari Baré, Joāo Ferreira and a wonderful cross-cultural collaboration that we would like to share with you.
On “Grand Maitre”, he carefully chops up the notes from the Malian kora of Ballaké Sissoko, into his keyboard and accompanies the Kora master with his own digitalised version accompanied with synths to create uniquely beautiful yet haunting harmonies. We hope you enjoy it as much as we do!
The record is out on Frecnh label InFiné , to find out more and to buy the full release click here.