UK audiences may be aware of the work of Tartine de Clous through their 2018 live album Au Cube (Okraina Records), recorded in Bristol with Alasdair Roberts and Neil McDermott. That record was a revelation, tingling with live energy and the spirit of collaboration, and anyone who used it as a springboard to discover their first – and until now only – studio album would not have been disappointed. Sans Folklore (2015) opened up a beguiling world of traditional Francophone song, performed unaccompanied (or occasionally with a background drone) and recorded largely on the hoof: in bars, around tables, in the street, and with all the accompanying background noise that those situations dictated. The intention was to create a ‘veillée’ or vigil, where music exists in a real and physical human context. The result was a music that reached into the past but sounded grippingly present.
Compter Les Dents was less peripatetic in its creation than Sans Folklore, but the idea of music as something other than performance or recording session persists. These songs come from the Vendée department on France’s Atlantic coast and were apparently found in an old shoebox. The trio recorded them nearly six years ago around a table in a friend’s house; their existence seems to say that song can be as habitual as eating breakfast or chatting about the football. As habitual and as necessary as breath, even. The first track, C’etait un Contre-Navire, finds the three voices weaving in and out of each other with a newfound gravity. C’était la Fille d’un Parisien has a more playful, flirtatious feel, and Nous Partons Tous Mes Très Chers Camarades is a nimble call-and-response song, a farewell both fond and defiant.
A kind of alchemy occurs in songs like Si j’etais Hirondelle, where the voices, stately in isolation, combine to form something both delicate and exalted. Dès l’âge de Quinze Ans emphasises the subtlety and softness that can be teased out of a three-part harmony, while Le Roi Renaud starts off close and discursive before the harmonies flower inexorably.
Compared with Sans Folklore, Compter Les Dents features a richer variety of instrumentation and a wider array of collaborators. Quentin Manfroy’s piccolo and contrabassoon embellish the closing song, Je Suis Venu La Belle. La Mignonne à l’Ombrage has a violin (Robert Thébault) that starts life as an insistent drone and mutates into a sweetly melancholic melody, mirroring the voices then striking out on its own. The drone on Y’avait un Mois ou Cinq Semaines is complemented by a beautifully understated guitar courtesy of Marceau Portron. La Veuve features the late Jean-Loup Baly, of 1970s French folk forerunners Mélusine, on accordion.
The spirit of Baly and Mélusine hovers around the edges of the album, and the same can be said of musicians Claude and Lou Flagel, in whose home the majority of these songs were recorded. This makes for a beguiling mixture of conviviality and melancholy, which pervades the whole album and strengthens the notion that Tartine de Clous’ music is something shared, something that exists in the world with lasting meaning. It’s so refreshing to hear music that is not overtly performative and not intended primarily as a product to be consumed.
Like Au Cube, Compter Les Dents is released on the ever-reliable Brussels-based label Okraina, who are doing their best to scour the wilder shores of music. Like the bands they work with, Okraina do things their own way, releasing their albums on 10-inch vinyl with beautifully designed sleeves by Gwénola Carrère. They have a kind of outsider appeal, unwilling to compromise on quality and seemingly unswayed by commercial concerns. Tartine de Clous must now be regarded as one of their flagship bands. They are certainly one of the most talented and interesting.
Compter Les Dents (12th January 2025) Okraina (Digital/Vinyl)
Liner notes by Alasdair Roberts
Pre-Order via Bandcamp: https://okrainarecords.bandcamp.com/album/compter-les-dents
