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Dragonfly jive >> Parisian trio Ekova, unstuck in space and time
by RUPERT BOTTENBERG Sidebar: More on MEG
"It would be too easy to say that Ekova is a mix between Middle Eastern and Celtic," remarks singer Dierdre Dubois, "which is what a lot of people say, even here in France. The more I discover different musics, the more I find myself mixing, in one phrase, styles from many different countries." What goes for place goes for time as well. "Although we had all three decided at one point in our lives that we wanted to turn to acoustic instruments, we all had one foot in modern music. I've never been a purist. There was always this idea that it could be fun and interesting to go even farther than just beyond borders and barriers, and mix not only every culture but also modern and traditional music."
And then there were three (or four) A little background: American-born Dubois, of Italian, French and British lineage, tunes into Celtic folk via her dulcimer-toting mom. At 21, she bails for a four-year busking career in Europe, discovering the neo-medieavalism of Dead Can Dance and Cocteau Twins and, subsequently, the Middle Eastern modal music to which both Celtic and medieaval music owe a debt. Enter percussionist Arach Khalatbari. Having followed his sisters out of revolution-torn Iran, pathological table-tapper Khalatbari capitalized on the polycultural character of Paris to explore his interest in drumming. After a stint with experimental collective Vox Populi and some theatre work, he began working the café circuit with Dubois. Then came Algerian-born Medhi Haddab. The only one of the three with formal training, Haddab was a prize-winning teen prodigy on the electric guitar. Before settling in Paris, he stayed a spell in Burundi, even playing on national radio there. "It wasn't until he got to France," explains Dubois, "that he became interested in the traditional music of his own country. It's ironic; when he was in Algiers, the electric guitar was what would take him far away. When he came to France, the oud was what would bring him back home." Upon putting pen to paper with Sony Classics, it was decided that the trio's debut disc, Heaven's Dust, would benefit from a touch of modernity to balance the antique resource material. To this end, tech-tweaker Cyrille Dugay was enlisted. "We didn't really know Cyrille very well," recalls Dubois, "so we were taking a chance. I'm actually very pleased with how it went over. It was very fluid and understated. We were looking for a fourth member of the group, and Cyrille was that member--just for the album. He's never performed with us live. We've pretty much had to learn to work the machines ourselves."
The mix remixed, the tongue untied That evolution has continued with their latest release, Soft Breeze and Tsunami Breaks, a collection of remixes by 13 artists from the French electronic scene, including DJ Cam and Doctor L. "We didn't have an enormous budget, so the artists who worked on this album did it out of pleasure. DJ Cam could have been paid 10 times as much to work with someone else. I'm touched by that." The exercise opened up even greater horizons for Ekova. "When you listen to Roudoudou's mix, for example, he chose the most Celtic song on the album and did a reggae version. I was so surprised! Only two or three of the mixes sounded like what I would have imagined. There are just so many styles--the whole spectrum is there." Something that illustrates the point of Ekova--the whole being greater than the sum of its parts--is Dubois' use of invented language. Dubois cites Cocteau Twin Elizabeth Fraser as an inspiration here. "There was hearsay that she was speaking in tongues, or this or that. Nobody ever knew exactly what she was saying, but that never bothered me. It never crossed my mind that I needed to know. "I turn off the conscious side of the consonants and the vowels. It's this mysterious, abstract thing that's coming from I don't know where. I suppose it's inspired by the music, the cadence and tonalities, or maybe different languages mixed together. But it's a mystery to me, and I like it that way. I tell people it's the language of the dragonfly speaking to the brook."
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Think of it as music in the fourth dimension. That is, music unconstrained not only by space--geographical, cultural, political--but by time as well. You'll understand, then, that trying to define the sound created by Parisian trio Ekova, who perform at the MEG mini-fest this week, is beyond complicated--it's downright frustrating.