It comes out October 25 Bird Councilpresented as the latest album from Hadouk, a captivating instrumental duo formed in 1995 by Loy Ehrlich (keyboards, hajouj, kora, percussion, sanza) and Didier Malherbe (saxophone, flute, doudouk, ocarina). Two musicians whose instruments suggest an invitation to travel. Two composers in love with musical nomadism. Originally a duo, Hadouk became a trio with the arrival of French-American percussionist and drummer Steve Shehan in 1997. After his departure, six albums later, the group evolved into a quartet with guitarist Eric Löhrer and percussionist Jean-Luc Di Fraya then become a duo again for this tenth album which is released today and marks the end of a cycle, explains Loy Ehrlich: “The Hadouk project has come to an end. The guiding principle of this record is to close the loop, to close a cycle we started together. »
For thirty years, Hadouk has been inventing an imaginary folklore, a moving melodic and rhythmic geography, a journey. Wicked choruses, tender melodies, surprising combinations of timbres, dreams and sweetness. Today like yesterday, when they recorded the sound of Hadouk for the first time on an album, titled with the name they chose for their duo. A two-syllable portmanteau of each person’s favorite instrument: hajouj, a deep-toned three-stringed Moroccan lute for Loy Ehrlich, and doudouk, the soulful Armenian oboe, for Didier Malherbe.
Released on the Tangram label in 1996, the album had become impossible to find. Reactivating it today, renaming it Ball of the Birdsand attach it to the new disk, “whose title still evokes the theme of birds, omnipresent in our compositions, especially with the contribution of the ocarina performed by Didier.explains Loy Ehrlich. It’s also a way to mirror the first disc, already illustrated by two birds on the cover”. From the ball, the meeting of the birds moved to a council.
Complicity and complementarity
Over the years, new instruments appeared in the world of the duo: Chinese and Indian flutes, the mouth organ from Laos (khên), the cellito d’amore (a kind of viola d’amore, designed by a violin maker for Loy Ehrich). The Berber rib… The common thread remains the same, emphasizes Didier Malherbe – he no longer plays the saxophone, after a bad fall five years ago, leaving him with persistent pain in his jaw: “Make our instruments, let’s say ‘exotic’, say something other than what they traditionally say. For me, mine are a bit like my gurus, they are the ones who give me ideas. »
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