Music
Press
"Few other French artists are that able to caper about various musical possibilities, from hip-hop to Charlie Haden, from indie-pop to new folk, and remain natural and credible". - J.D. Beauvallet
"Ouliposaliva is wreathed with a sense of mad poetry... no doubt, Mickaël Mottet is one of the most original creative French authors today" - Marc Gourdon
"After the beautiful Teaser for : Matter in 2004, Angil is back with a brilliant experimental album. Surrounded by his friends the Hidentracks, the band is offering a subliminal symphony, using all the instruments they can find. The voice looks like Robert Wyatt singing hip-hop and exempt it from “indie rock” label. Oulipo Saliva is a beautiful mixture of jazz and rap, taking us above some virgin land. It’s above this inventive music that we can feel the incredible beauty of this album, this master piece made of diamond brightness." - Sarah Constantin
"Mickaël Mottet's latest project, already critically acclaimed in his native France, gets its worldwide release in November this year. Composed entirely on a discordant piano and based on the sounds of brass and woodwind instruments, Ouliposaliva contains no song written in the key of E. Not only that, but Mottet also chose to omit any words containing the letter 'e' from the lyrics - his orchestra The Hiddentracks obediently dropping the offending letter from their name for the release.
Sounds like some pseudo-concept album bollocks, right? Wrong.
Instead, it plays like a theatrical pot of poetical jazz mixed with delicious, gothic undertones: listening to this album is like stumbling into a pleasurable Tim Burton dream; one where you're the star. You simply can't scan over this album as though fanning through the racks at your local record store. You will need to put some time aside to reap the rewards of this imaginative, mad and unforgettable experience, but we certainly recommend you do." - Ash Akhtar
"French eccentric introduces Coltrane to The Clangers
This latest LP from singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Mickael Mottet may not surrender its charms immediately, but it's well worth a little perseverance. Mottet plinks away on an ancient, comically out-of-tune piano, focusing on brass, woodwind and percussion, eschewing the letter "e" entirely in his lyrics (reprinted in the CD booklet, so sceptics can check) as well as the key of E (at his saxophonist's request). The result is a twilight world where Robert Wyatt and John Coltrane rub shoulders with Why? and Vernon Elliot. Mad, but quite magical."
**** - Sharon O'Connel
"Oh boy, you'll be happy to love a record this much."
(rated 9/10) - Vice
"Teaser isn’t an easy record, but, it’s got me thinking that the problems are mine. For what it’s worth, I’d recommend giving this set the time it takes and start with the smashed up, fucked up, road smash horror-beauty of "She Said…" It’s one we’ve all been in, so yeah, I love this record." - Unpeeled
"Teaser for: matter excels when combining childlike ingenuity with snatches of electronica." - The Fly
"Sounds like Robert Wyatt jamming with cLOUDDEAD and Sparklehorse. Half-angel, half-devil, but totally unique." - Rocksound
" 'Oulipo Saliva' revolves around an inventive, naturalistic and watertight musical device that shapes, guides and informs the direction of the record completely. Angil & Hiddentracks head honcho Mickael Mottet (louche, jazzy French soothsayer) elected to banish the letter 'E' from the whole thing - the chord and the letter in the lyrics and even from the lyric book and sleeve. If you listened without this knowledge, you'd appreciate the emotive turns of phrase, the moody piano, the minimal strings, woodwind and horns in accompaniment (there's no rock here) and the atmosphere of calm assertion. With the knowledge, though, it becomes an even more ingenious undertaking, simultaneously brave, silly, whimsical and thoroughly satisfying. Also, the close of the album is essentially the word 'fuck' repeated for quite some time. No 'E' in that. " - Daniel Ross
Discography
11/24/2008
"Oulipo Saliva", LP, Chemikal Underground under exclusive license of WAUR
2008
"Angil Was A Cat", EP, France, We Are Unique Records)
2007
"Oulipo Saliva", LP, We Are Unique Records, France and Belgium only
"Teased", LP, We Are Unique Records
2006
Angil & B R OAD WAY, "The John Venture", CD+DVD, 6 AM Prod./We Are Unique Records
2005
"Beginning Of The Fall", EP, Unique Records/Megaphone Music
"Matter", EP, Unique Records
"Teaser For: Matter", Megaphone Music under exclusive license of UR
2004
"Teaser for: Matter", LP, Unique Records
Photos
Bio
4 years have passed since the release of Angil's first LP "Teaser for: matter", critically acclaimed in France as one of the top records of 2004. Mickaël Mottet, the man behind the name, has not exactly been twiddling his thumbs: Angil and his live band the Hiddentracks have played many gigs in France, Spain, and Iceland (with the likes of Why?, Bright Eyes, the Kills, Brigitte Fontaine...). The LP (and an exclusive EP) were released in the UK by Megaphone (Karen Dalton, Michael Head...), while We Are Unique Records in France issued "Matter", another 4-track EP including self-remixed and re-composed songs. Angil also contributed to the John Venture.
The John Venture brings together Angil and B R OAD WAY, both from St. Etienne. The seven, dressed uniformly in black with red ties, excite the crowd with their carefully-crafted electronica-based, English language songs. They look new rock n' roll but are much more subtle and delicate in their sound (Live review by Claire Kember, Music Towers).
Considered by many as one of the best LPs of 2006, the John Venture led Angil and friends to prestigious French Festivals (Printemps de Bourges, Rockomotives with Grizzly Bear, touring and collaborations with Anticon's Jel...). Meanwhile, Teaser for: matter was remixed by 9 artists (featuring dDamage, Andrei Kiritchenko, Tex la Homa, etc.) and the result, Teased, was sent for free to all members of the Hidden List, Angil's interactive, supporting fan club.
Despite such a hectic period (or perhaps thanks to it?), Mickaël Mottet still managed to write his new LP, "Ouliposaliva". The original concept was formed during an after-gig conversation in Barcelona's Primavera Festival, between Mottet and Hiddentracks' saxophonist Francis Bourganel: the idea of writing an entire album based on the sound of brass and woodwind instruments. "OK", Bourganel said, "let's do it. But dont use the E key, as it's always been a tough one for alto saxophonists!" No sooner said than done: Mottet started writing E-less songs, never employing the E chord in the music, or the letter E in any of the lyrics. This idea referenced Georges Pérec's "La disparition" (translated into English as "A Void"), a lipogram novel written under the aegis of the Oulipo.
Oulipo stands for "Ouvroir de littérature potentielle", which translates roughly as "workshop of potential literature". It is a loose gathering of French writers and mathematicians, and seeks to create works using constrained writing techniques. It was founded in 1960. (Wikipedia)
Mickaël Mottet composed most of "Ouliposaliva"'s songs on a 1904 piano salvaged from a neighbouring clothes shop which was closing down (where it had been used as part of the decor). Instead of having it tuned, Mottet took the weirdly resounding piano as it was, following the example of John Cage's prepared instruments, and adapted his compositions to its strange, Tim-Burtonesque sound. Then, gathering all 11 musicians of his flexible orchestra the Hiddntracks (who also lost their E incidentally) they recorded the album at nearby art squat, La Fabrique, with fellow producer Gilles Deles, who had worked on "Teaser for: matter" and is a member of the Hiddntracks as a guitarist. Which reminds us: guitars are barely present on this record: following the predicate stated in "Teaser for: matter"'s opening song, "No more guitars", Angil gave percussion, strings, woodwinds, and brass arrangements prominence in "Ouliposaliva". He also emphasised the casual, hip hop feel that had dappled his earlier works, thus giving cross hints to both Why? and Sun Ra, Lisa Germano and Alice Coltrane, Soul Couhging and Tryggve Seim. The final touch to this ambitious project was added by French comics author Guillaume Long, who contributed the inspirational illustrations for "Ouliposaliva"'s booklet.
"Few other French artists are that able to caper about various musical possibilities, from hip-hop to Charlie Haden, from indie-pop to new folk, and remain natural and credible".
Jean Daniel Beauvallet Les Inrockuptibles - "Ecouté et approuvé" exclusive label
"Ouliposaliva is wreathed with a sense of mad poetry... no doubt, Mickaël Mottet is one of the most original creative French authors today"
Marc Gourdon ° - Magic RPM, May 2007
Originally released in France by the French independent label We Are Unique Records in May 2007, "Ouliposaliva" will be available the 24th November 2008 world-wide through a license with the cult Scottish label Chemikal Underground (Mogwaï, Arba Strap, Delgados, Radar Bros ).
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