Previously working solo under the alias of Sourdure (and featured in our KLOF Mix series Episode 11 and Episode 16), French folk experimentalist Ernest Bergez, a proponent of the music of the mountainous French Auvergne region and the Occitan language, took to a more collective route on L’Herbe De Détourne, expanding to a four-piece group and name change to Sourdurent.
In his review of the album, released last month on Bongo Joe Records / Murailles Music, David Pratt noted how, by releasing an album in the Occitan language, Sourdurent were not only making a socio-political statement within their own country but were also promoting the language to a broader audience. It’s a romance language derived from vernacular Latin – noted for also being the traditional language of troubadours; it’s a minority language spoken in six dialects across Southern France, Monaco, Italy’s Occitan Valleys, and Catalonia’s Val d’Aran. I wrote about the language previously in an article on the Occitan duo Cocanha, who, in an interview with Bandcamp, said, “Choosing to sing, or even to speak, Occitan on a day-to-day basis, is a political act, and not an anodyne one…”
David described Sourdurent’s L’Herbe De Détourne as a bold venture, and for those willing to be adventurous in their listening, the results are deeply rewarding. One of the album’s highlights was La Dumenchada, on which he wrote:
The rumbustious La Dumenchada (The Weekend), much of which is credited to Puech and Uberto, is a jarring, maverick listen. The crazed cabrette and fife coalesce to create a sound akin to a gaggle of deranged geese, the chanted, rap-like vocals, delivered at whirlwind speed, could be a playground skipping rhyme for the hyperactive with the corybantic clatter of the percussion, only adding to the onslaught. Whereas the group usually blend the acoustic and electronic sounds together in a homogenised manner, here there seems to be a deliberate decision to have them meet head-on, creating a paroxysmal frenzy of collaged sound, an aural equivalent of the ‘cut-up’ or ‘fold-in’ writing of William Burroughs.
The mention of Burroughs may be a little uncanny, as the video for La Dumenchada, set in a medieval village, involves a psychotropic drug. Rye ergot is a fungus blight that forms hallucinogenic drugs in bread…there are lots of examples of ergot hallucinations and deaths in the Middle Ages, and the twitches and spasms it often caused were also known as St. Vitus Dance. Witches were often blamed, and it’s been suggested that witch hunts often followed in areas where people had eaten contaminated rye.
La Dumenchada – The Story
“A group of peasants in a medieval village secretly soak the wafers in the chapel with a solution of rye ergot. After the mass, the nobles return home for the feast as the effects of the psychotropic drugs begin to kick in. Meanwhile, the nobles are in delirium, and the peasants break in and steal the castle’s gold before fleeing as night falls.”
The clip for “La Dumenchada” is the story of a popular overthrow in a fantasised Middle Age. Invoking, in turn, the influence of Rohmer, Bresson and Méliès, the clip is constructed like an accelerated fiction trying to keep up with the frenetic rhythm of Sourdurent’s music. The clip alternates between classicism and psychedelic illumination, relying on a certain realism to better reveal the buffoonery of a delirious nobility. Constructed and thought out like an elliptical film, La Dumenchada attempts the impossible, blowing a wind of class reversal in the course of just 4 minutes.
The video and concept are brilliantly executed, and the more I hear this music, the more I sense its freedom of spirit.
Video Credits:
Sourdurent – “La Dumenchada”
Extract from “L’herbe de Détourne”
Written and directed by Julien Ethoré-Bonet
Produced by L’Endroit, Murailles Music and Bongo Joe Records
With Camille Agard, François Arbon, Marion Arnoux, Céline Cartillier, Benoît Coly, Stéphanie Cristofaro, Lucie Dessiaumes, Guilhem Lacroux, Camille Lainé, Ophélie Manchon, Jean-Philippe Mangeon, Milan Marquès, Bastien Mignot, Gauthier Plaetevoet, Ophélie Poma, François Thuillier, Valérie Tournilhac, Mélinda Van de Ven
Image: Juliette Barrat
Production manager: Augustin Hubert
Editing: Julien Ethoré-Bonet
Assistant Director: Asia Raffenel
2nd Assistant Director: Bastien Mignot
Head of set design: Guillaume Marie
Assistant set designer: Lucie Guillaume
Costumes : Stéphanie Cristofaro
Assistant Costume Designer: Yanis Vérot
Trainee costume designer: Ophélie Poma
1st Assistant Operator: Léo Brézot
2nd assistant operator : Clément Colliaux
Chief electrician: Arnaud Guez
Electrician: Arthur Besseux
Head stagehand: Pierre Frink
Stage manager: Léna Mantez
Stage manager: Ernest Bergez
Matte painting: Stéphanie Cristofaro
Calibration: Charles Traboulsi at Les Films du Périscope
Producers L’Endroit :
Maud Deschambres, Pascal Barneville & Bastien Ehouzan
Production manager: Ismaël Benazzouz
Acknowledgements:
Ernest Bergez, Valérie Tournilhac, Françoise Tournilhac, Michel Tournilhac, Le Château de Saint-Diéry, Frédéric Chassard and Saint-Diéry Town Hall, Brigitte Rouchy, Christiane Bressolier, Claire Pain ceramics, Les Films du Périscope, Les Charrettes de Pauline, Nestor, Next and go, Nicolas Bouchard and Guillaume Demaret at Panavision & Panalux, La boîte noire, Larosa, La malle aux costumes, Gite de la Piove, Gite les Hirondelles, Gite du Coste Aider, Gite l’Escapade
With the support of the Centre National de la Cinématographie et de l’Image Animée and the SCPP.