Listen to the new album from Avignon, Thomas Pitiot.
Thomas Pitiot comes back to us with songs that never stop questioning our geographies, our positions and our inner worlds. The relationship with others and the search for a shared humanity remain the common thread of his texts and his musical bridges.
Even if for 20 years he has been weaving a singular relationship with West Africa through numerous extended trips to Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Morocco and Ivory Coast, his anchorage, his land of flight remain the Seine-Saint-Denis, a popular department where he has spent all his life. For a few years now, he has been living in Avignon and as he writes in one of his new songs, 93 Occitanie, “ I leave the park of La Courneuve for the Saintes-Maries de la mer, always these birds which move me the migrants are all my brothers, there is the sun on my neuroses and the mistral in the instrument, and if I see the life in pink, there are still no arrangements! “.
Still no arrangements with all the forms of injustice, domination and prejudice that Thomas has always denounced since his first album Le Tramway du bonheur (2002).
Singing, for him, is above all speaking, a word that may seem original in the age of political correctness and standardization of all kinds.
Although Thomas’ songs are the fruit of a generation of interbreeding and mixed cultures, it is part of the tradition of a song of commitment, a humanist song, which intends to bring together the poetic and the political, the social and intimate. In his musical genealogy, François Béranger, Pierre Vassiliu, Bernard Lavilliers, Bob Marley, Salif Keïta, NTM, Allain Leprest, Anne Sylvestre, Alpha Blondy and many others come together, like plural worlds and fraternities.
IN THIS NEW RECORD, we find songs related to fatherhood, including Mado for her second daughter as well as De mèche, a tribute to the ladies of the nursery, little hands and big hearts from early childhood. It is about a trip with Chéri Coco and the women of these great African capitals who survive in the informal economy while holding families and an often ungrateful society at arm’s length. Your island is a song that questions the evolution of these small fishing islands that are gradually turning into a holiday resort. At the bottom of you, life traces the journey of a young migrant who has recently arrived in Europe, armed with both his courage and his distress. Your mom talks about all the violence and loneliness felt by a little girl whose mother is incarcerated. Terre volée and Tu auras beau express the legitimate revolt of the peoples whose ancestral lands have been plundered as well as the rejection of authoritarian and security responses that apply to current protest movements. Intimate songs also with Marcel where Thomas paints the portrait of the one who gave him at birth his first slippers to later take shared paths of life, or When I lose myself, reflection on the difficulty of reconciling a romantic relationship and desires of freedom.
Toi ma banlieue is a hymn to his suburb, the one where he spent 40 years, which accompanies him to the edge of a world that he sees through his own eyes. Lighter songs also like Les Téjis (Jehovah’s Witnesses), which tells of the rather fanciful reception that Thomas reserves for them when they ring at his door. 93 Occitanie is building a bridge between Seine-Saint-Denis, its life before, and the south of France, its reality today, with references from both sides that mix langue d’oc and language of eye in general sunshine. Finally, Le temps de picoler, tenderly deconstructs the notion of festive alcoholism by following the time of an evening a man struggling with his demons who tries to escape his infinite loneliness.
Press extracts:
“Pitiot le prolo gentilhomme is a special case, a rare universe: solid and unique. ” Philippe barbot Telerama (fff)
“The texts of Thomas Pitiot are of a humanity as big as the planet and the music colored like the rainbow. Real strong stories presented in a musical cauldron whose potion can lead, it is according to, in the dream or in the dance. Heart stroke ! ” Michel Troadec West France
“Thomas Pitiot’s song is rebellious: the beauty of the little people is entirely there, magnified by a rare interpretation, by an unusual sensitivity … It can only be our favorite. ” Michel kemper Progress
“With his funny accent from nowhere, Thomas Pitiot breaks down borders and tells about his city-world, a universe rich in colors, sounds, languages, encounters. ” Rosa Moussaoui Humanity
“His texts are tender, funny or scathing. He tackles all registers, serious and trivial. Undoubtedly, Thomas Pitiot feasts (and feasts on us) with words. ” Frederique Briard Marianne