Urs Graf Consort

“Urs Graf Consort, a collective with a corrupted genealogy, produce trail-blazing simulacra - songs nested within themselves, with the experimental accents of Ursonate. A protean duo operates under the name of Swiss engraver Urs Graf (1485 - c. 1529); Prune Bécheau and Adrien Bardi-Bienenstock are composers and performers for ensembles that are as varied as the motley company brought together in The Peasants War which Urs Graf depicted; Uva Ursi captures on-the-spot at acoustic vigils on the edge of amplified battlefields.

Baroque violin, vièle-à-trou, bass, arranged drums, a broad spectrum of vocals, tuba, trumpet, synthesizer, spinet, sanza, shakers, bells and rattles... are all played in different concerts by: Simon Sieger, Mathias Pontévia, Jœl Grip, Samuel Burjade, Sam Langer, Paul Ferbos, Pierre Borel, Adrien Perron, Rachel Ramos, Emmanuel Le Glatin, Mathieu Cahuzac, Camille Émaille, Gabriel Bristow, Antoine Hummel, Makoto Sato, Arden Day, Olivia Scemama, Pascal Sieger, Geoffroy Gesser, Malgorzata Kasprzycka, Gwladys Le Cuff, and many others. The sheer number and differing degrees of participation by these musicians and their voices avoids genre - from passionate, rasping dialogues and the slow sedimentary effort of building the composition, to the use of six languages in various arrangements and surprise oral interventions. The same applies to the modes of recording, whether in the studio, live or by integrating direct sound recordings.

The compositions on Uva Ursi - or bearberry, a medicinal mountain plant with small white flowers - confound expectations and established standards and attain new forms of interplay between Italian variety, free jazz, cabaret, instrumental theatre, Lettrist recitation, the disruptive intensities of improvisation and noise, and walrus songs. These disjunctive synthesis do not exclude humming or toe-tapping either, even though they may initially seem untenable as a whole: the airs are captivating but any dancing only arrives in passing, and either gets bogged down by weird meter or catches a chill from deceptive disintegrations and globbed down by macabre sounds.” - Gwladys Le Cuff