Christine Salem, beyond traditions – RFI Musique

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Christine Salem returns with Thanks, an album in which the Reunionese singer continues to connect us to the world of ancestors in 13 tracks that draw a future for maloya, beyond tradition.

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Christine Salem is a name that rings out on the planet Reunion. A name, a voice, a presence, an ease and a clairvoyance. As often in Reunion, as always as soon as the maloya enters the dance, the ancestors and their spirit are invited. Not to make them come back from smoky halos or from a distant past, but because they are there, right next door, with us, it suffices to “give them thanks” to use the term of the argument provided by the record company, to talk to them so that they can answer us. They don’t ask for better.

So Christine Salem talks to them. In the cabaret service, this “dance of the spirits” which brings together the members of a family, of a community, around offerings made in music and dance to the elders. On stage too, where she learned to share this mystique with an audience that may never have previously paid attention to the vibrations of this world beyond the world, from this other world.

Far ahead

On this fourth album, the musician and singer shines. Her blue lips with precise contours contrast with her blurry afro. The fixed, inhabited gaze gives direction. Far ahead because Christine Salem knows that she is artistically surrounded by an outstanding group (Frédéric Norel on violin, Seb Martel on guitar, Anne-Laure Bourget on percussion and Jacky Malbrouck on roll), a group formed through meetings, mutual recognition; but also by Blue Fanal, a label, his label created with producer Nathalie Soler and Dylan Salem, his son, musician and DJ (aka DJ MFK) upstream of the production of Larg Pa Lo Kor, his previous opus.

According to her, this album puts her voice “forward, like never before on any other” she specifies, emphasizing the work of Jean Lamoot (Brigitte Fontaine, Bashung, Salif Keita, Grèn Semé…), the director of this fourth opus under his name, the 7th since its debut. “He worked in his corner, which suits me well, me who when I collaborate with musicians, producers, like to leave them free to bring their touch, to invent my music with me. very attentive, he listens to the slightest inflection of voice, of your desires. So, I just had to let myself be carried away “, specifies the singer who approached the music, entered into music by its traditional side, by the maloya.

Beyond tradition

This maloya which links generations to Reunion opens the album. Incarnated by the voice of Christine Salem, he is adorned on Anou, the first title electric riffs which cut, riffs which chisel the speech of the priestess supported by a tense beat. This voice which, in the past, had accustomed us to find its ease between maloya and blues, “two musics of slaves” she specifies, widens the spectrum here. “In Reunion, we have been able to keep this link with the invisible world, with our ancestors, a link that has frayed in the blues to the point that the descendants of slaves in the United States are afraid of all that”, she comments. “Some titles are born in the tradition and others on the guitar or the piano. I am self-taught, I trusted myself”, she admits.

He cannot be blamed. Her music plays a big part in melodies, whether they are sung or played on violin, guitar and even harmonica, melodies that she heard during the composition and that she only had to ask the accompanying musicians to perform.

“I invite you to love you”

Each title has its color, its texture, its grain. This musical diversity and the richness of the arrangements that serve it, highlight it, have liberated it. Assured, she ventures into a title in French (I say no) and one in English (Why War). “Both were in Creole, but it didn’t. French and English imposed themselves on me” she recounts.

A first for the singer who dares to take a opposite view with this I say no, “title nicely ironic for this invitation to take a benevolent gaze on oneself as well as on the other ” specifies the booklet on which each title is presented, summarized.

Announced on February 4 in the program of the Parisian festival Over the Voices, the Reunionese singer hopes that the sanitary conditions will allow her to be there. “If we are reconfigured, the concert will take place in streaming” specifies the singer who needs this exchange with her audience, this offering to give full life to this captivating repertoire.

Christine Salem Thanks (Blue Fanal / L’Autre Distribution) 2021
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