L’ÉTRANGLEUSE

L'Étrangleuse is two girls and two boys who play an undefined form of minimalist rock and free song in four voices, amplifying the dialogue between a pedal harp made of bird's eye maple and a goatskin djeli n'goni, on the archaic grooves of a bass drum set covered in trinkets.

The original duo, formed by Mélanie Virot, a classical harpist accustomed to taking her imposing instrument far from its usual, unamplified contexts, combining contemporary dance and improvised music, and Maël Salètes, a veteran of Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp and long-time accomplice of Somaliland singer Sahra Halgan, has released 3 albums and played more than 300 concerts, in tiny European squats, barns, attics, prestigious stages and festivals such as the Suds in Arles, No Border, the Péristyle-Opéra Underground festival, or the Nuits de Fourvière and the Nuits Sonores.

With a fourth album in June 2024, the first as a quartet, L'Étrangleuse dynamites the original chamber post-rock with Anne Godefert, bassist and singer from electronic music, and Léo Dumont, drummer-objetist accustomed to sonic audacities (Chromb, Pixvae, An Pagay, Polymorphie...). On stage, the pieces stretch out, the sound of the group captivates hearts in a contemplative reverie and inexorably draws bodies into a frenetic dance.

- THE PRESS IS TALKING ABOUT IT -

“A change of scenery is guaranteed with the new album from L'Étrangleuse. “Le Remède” sets the tone from the outset and we are caught up in this intoxicating tour punctuated by choruses and chanted lyrics. (...) If the instrumental approach is sometimes favored, it is especially when it manages to combine with snippets of songs that the alchemy works and the astonishing creative palette of this extraordinary group becomes evident.” HM - Rock & Folk *** – June 2024

"Hypnotic atmospheres, surrealist settings, etched in this loose rock that is clay. In its new UFO, the Lyon quartet explores matter and movement, hands in boxwood jazz, minimalist rock, noise, psychedelic. (...) Stunning, deliciously disconcerting, this album offers a flight above our cuckoo's nests." Benoît Merlin - Jazz News - Summer 2024