On the poster of 23e MUTEK festival, Tarta Relena is an exception. This Catalan duo is more used to being invited by festivals of traditional music, baroque music or contemporary music. But by an avant-garde electronic music festival?
Helena Ros and Marta Torrella are also surprised, they confided to the To have to.“Although we can listen to our music and think that it’s like ambient music that evolves into something more carnal because of our voices, believes Helena. In the end, if the public welcomes our proposal, everything is going well! »
Helena and Marta became friends on the first day of primary school and have never been apart since. The first was learning to play the guitar, the second took up the cello. In high school, they joined a choir.
“The choir director was a great freak, says Marta. He asked us to sing a lot of works from the Baroque repertoire and works from the Renaissance, liturgical music, but also a lot of contemporary music with bizarre harmonies. Helena studied singing, but for my part, I embarked on studies in musicology. »
With this brief response, Marta perfectly sums up the approach of Tarta Relena, who expresses herself so well in this UFO third album, fiat Lux, released last winter. It is first of all a work of vocal polyphony, very delicately orchestrated with percussion, electronic or synthetically modified.
It is then a journey through eras and cultures, the musicians interpreting, or recontextualizing, old songs from all over the Mediterranean, in addition to an Afghan text and a composition by the Benedictine nun of the 12th century. century Hildegard von Bingen. On the album, they sing in six or seven different languages.
“Progressive Gregorian Chant”
As a joke, they baptized their musical style “progressive Gregorian chant”. Nested, you say? The context behind the creation of fiat lux has its importance of course, but has no impact on the appreciation that we make of the album. Their music is simply beautiful. Two superb voices orchestrated in a refined way, often old melodies, but appearing timeless through their global vision.
“Choir music is very widespread in Catalonia,” explains Helena Ros. It’s a tradition with us, just like the vocal technique and the type of polyphonies we use, which are always very warm”, which makes Tarta Relena’s approach so accessible.
Choral music is widespread in Catalonia. It’s a tradition with us, just like the vocal technique and the type of polyphonies we use, which are always very warm.
“The mix of cultures and influences in our music is not so much thought out, more intuitive,” says Marta Torrella. We invent these songs from the references that we like, it is only once the album is finished that the overall portrait takes shape”, that of a unifying music, both multicultural and unique.
“We are naturally attracted by what we don’t know, languages, types of scales, harmonies that are out of the ordinary. »
Soon on tour
Released last December, the album fiat lux received a glowing review published on the specialized media Pitchfork, which gave exceptional visibility to the two musicians who we saw on stage Thursday evening accompanying their “sister” Marina Herlop, also invited by MUTEK.
Overnight, the phone started ringing in Barcelona, rejoices Helena: “We were even contacted by a turner in North America, we never imagined that it could happen one day. We’ll be doing our first North American tour in a few weeks, so we’re like, “What’s going on?” In addition, our songs are not even performed in English or French. Thanks to this criticism, we started to listen to what we were doing and to take ourselves seriously. It changed everything,” she says, adding that she has already started working on new original material.
Finally, we should point out that Tarta Relena is showing an entirely female programme, from the music to the visual projections. The Play 2 program at the Society for Arts and Technology (SAT) will begin at 10 p.m. with a concert by composer Ambre Ciel, revealed at the Francouvertes, and will continue with a performance by Norwegian experimental composer Carmen Villain. More rhythmic, the Montrealer Ellxandra and the French rRoxymore will end the evening. Myriam Boucher and Line Katcho will light up the room