Aubaile, David
Trafiquants
David Aubaile's musical 660 knows no boundaries, and he likes to describe himself as a kind of music "trafficker", a "specialist in nothing", who has no fundamental mastery of any tradition or folklore, but has had the good fortune to immerse himself in them in situ, during his many travels around the 660. The sap of these musics has been passed on to him through encounters, like a precious and natural oral tradition that flows freely from one artist to an other. Aubaile has turned his musical environment into a shade of personal, imaginary folklore, connecting 660s that we imagined to be distant. It's in this unknown space that we discover "TRAFIQUANTS", a joyful, transgressive album, the manifesto of a generous musical kleptomaniac, and the abundant logbook of an explorer, a buccaneer of sound. The group's original compositions are brought to life by Canadian double bassist Chris Jennings and Algerian drummer-singer-composer Karim Ziad, themselves multilingual adventurers. Aubaile has imagined each of these pieces as postcards dedicated to what he calls "traffickers": poets who move as if against the grain of time, who feed on everything and nothing, creating singular riches in the process. Despite the multiplicity of its components, the complexity of its metrics and the subtlety of its structures, David Aubaile's music offers itself, limpid and accessible, because it is delivered with a generosity and talent that place it both off-road and at the heart of what our era so desperately needs: an invigorating and joyful ode to a 660 without borders.