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Sur l'excellent site EL BAB,
nouvelle interview en ligne de Titi:
cliquer ici
Titi et la Kali Sultana sur France 2, "CD d'aujourd'hui":
cliquer ici
Titi à "Ce soir ou Jamais", France 3:
cliquer ici
Interview écrite sur le site Babel Mad:
cliquer ici
En ligne sur RFI, le carnet de voyage de Titi en tournée en Inde en octobre 2008:
cliquer ici
NOUVEAU:
"KALI SULTANA l'ombre du ghazal"
spectacle en tournée et CD disponible
depuis l'automne 2008!
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" Je rêvais d'un monde dans lequel des compositeurs pourraient faire de la musique non contrainte par la loi du marché. Titi Robin a fait un album comme si cette idée fantaisiste était vraie. .... Le résultat est riche et émouvant, un conte qui a la profondeur d'un roman et la conduite narrative d'une légende populaire. "
Jon L Walters, The Guardian - 2009 (à propos de KALI SULTANA)
"One of the most interesting French gypsy guitarists today"
Los Angeles Philharmonic / Hollywood Bowl
" "Gitans" was not only ranked as one of the best albums of the year by critics around the world, but it is widely considered one of the best albums of Gypsy music ever recorded."
Dan Rosenberg, The Gypsy Road
"Titi Robin is probably one of the best known French composer / musician in the crossover world music style."
Eelco Schider, Folkworld
" I do think he is one of the world's great musicians and visionaries."
Charlie Gillet, BBC-London
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photo Louis Vincent
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At the beginning of the eighties he began to compose in an extremely personal style that has stayed with him since. In 1984 he produced himself (playing the guitar, the oud and the bouzouki) in a duet with Hameed Khan, the Indian tablas player from Jaipur, performing both on stage and in local festivities, clubs and oriental restaurants. His repertory (instrumental) grew little by little, just as the foundations of his improvisational style. An album : “Duo Luth et Tablâ”, that is no longer produced and has become a collector’s piece, bears witness to this original universe.
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Duo Luth et tablâ, with Hameed Khan (photo: D. Meuriault)
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In 1987, a strange group entered the musical scene in Angers:
“Johnny Michto”, a mixture of Moroccan Berber rhythms, electric bouzouki, rock bass guitar, clarinets and bagpipes; an attempt to offer the public something other than the rock groups that proliferated, by bringing together the folk cultures of the group’s members. Once again, it would be the North African community that gave the band the warmest welcome, the “born and bred” French finding it hard to take on board this novel style.
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photo: Christine Bartaud
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While working on the instrumental duo with Hameed Khan, mixing melodic improvisations and light-hearted rhythmical duels, Thierry Robin met the Breton singer Erik Marchand, a representative of what he considered to be the richest folk and traditional culture to be found near his region of birth. Together they would develop a repertory of compositions using quarter tone modes and the marriage of the Taqsîm style of oriental modal improvisation and the Gwerz, the very ancient monophonic lament that the singer is one of the few to preserve alongside Yann Fanch Kemener. Ocora Radio-France sent them into the recording studio: “An Henchou Treuz” (1990) was awarded the Charles Cros Academy Grand Prize.
It was the beginning of the meeting of two duos that would turn into the “Erik Marchand Trio”, for which Thierry Robin composes and arranges the best part of its repertory. This highly original group composed of a Breton singer, Arab lute player and a specialist of the Indian tablas (as a matter of interest, a photo of the group illustrates the first article on “world music” in the Encyclopaedia Universalis), performed a great deal, from Womad festivals to stages presenting contemporary music, from the Paris Théâtre de la Ville to the Quartz in Brest, and the jazz scene that greatly appreciates their innovative approach to improvisation. They also toured abroad, from Quebec to Houston, from Marrakech to Jerusalem. In 1991 the first “Erik Marchand Trio” work was released : “An Tri Breur” on the Silex record label.
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photo:
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With this group, Titi Robin had become known above all as an oud player. “Gitans”, released in January 1993, would better define the musician’s world, introducing the bouzouki and guitar player. It is a homage by the artist to the gipsy community that taught him so much. A mosaic of encounters between artists dear to Titi Robin, representing the various branches of this great family, from Northern India to Andalusia, via the Balkans, from which he draws his personal musical vision. Guest musicians : Gulabi Sapera (vocals), Bruno el Gitano (vocals, palmas, guitar), Mambo Saadna (vocals, palmas, guitar), Paco el Lobo (vocals, palmas) François Castiello (accordion), Hameed Khan (tablas), Francis Moerman (guitar), Abdelkrim Sami (percussion), Bernard Subert (clarinet, bagpipes). This record, and the ensuing group, met with a large audience of both erudite music-lovers and amateurs of Mediterranean music. “Gitans” toured from Japan to the Hollywood Ball (USA), from South Africa to Europe’s major World Music festivals.
At the beginning of 1996, “Le Regard Nu”, an instrumental record entirely improvised and the outcome of a year of experimental research was released, breaking away from this remarkable collective adventure. Thierry Robin took inspiration from the poses of women models, just as a painter or a sculptor, to fuel his solo musical improvisations on the oud and bouzouki. This unique album remains one of his great pride and joys with admirers from across the planet.
Gitans’ tours continued, giving rise to “Payo Michto” in 1997, a live album with Francis Varis playing the accordion.
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Gitans (photo: )
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Titi Robin was looking for a path along which he could create ties with modern Western folk music. The result was a new group, whose orchestration included the saxophone, drums and bass. It’s name : “Kali Gadji ”. The ever-present gipsy and oriental influences mix with French rap and Western African polyrhythms. Guest musicians are Renaud Pion (saxophones), Abdelkrim Sami (vocals, percussion), Farid “Roberto” Saadna (vocals, guitar, palmas), Jorge “Negrito” Trasante (drums), Gabi Levasseur (accordion), Alain Genty (bass) and Bernard Subert (oboe, bagpipes). This orchestra toured for many years alongside “Gitans”.
In 2000 “Un ciel de Cuivre” was released, an album that Titi Robin believes best represents his musical universe in all its diversity. Fifteen guest musicians include Farid “Roberto” Saadna, Gulabi Sapera, Keyvan Chemirani, François Laizeau, Renaud Pion, Negrito Trasante, Francis-Alfred Moerman,… Speaking of this album, Titi Robin said : “This new record is not performed by a precise orchestra, unlike PAYO MICHTO or KALI GADJI, that precede it. It bears witness to the diversity of my influences and, I hope, to the coherency of my aesthetic universe. Gipsy cultures, both Mediterranean and Balkan, are still very present, but this is above all a personal vision of the world that I want to express through these musical marriages that make up my everyday life. This album, just like the record GITANS released in 1993, is a voyage, each melody has a particular flavour, each rhythm a story, the geography of its cultural origins is a mirror image of the traveller’s inner landscape. There are intimist melodies and festive rumbas, grief-stricken chants and a gipsy lullaby, highly-orchestrated dance music and calm trios, snowy mountains and sunny shores, blood, spices and honey, and many other things that you may discover before I do…”.
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In studio at Waimes (photo: A. Von Buxhoeveden)
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From then on, a sextet toured continuously, presenting tracks from this record alongside older compositions.
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Sextet (photo: Véronique Guillien)
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An instrumental trio also began to perform (oud, guitar, bouzouki/accordion/percussion) with Francis Varis and Abdelkrim Sami, drawing from Titi’s entire repertory. They played mostly abroad, especially in the Middle-East.
Since 1992, Thierry Robin has constantly worked with Gulabi Sapera (famous in India as "Gulabo") , about whom he has even written a book “Gulabi Sapera, Danseuse Gitane du Rajasthan” (2000, Naïve/Actes-Sud). She was a frequent guest performer at Tit’s shows and the songs “Pundela”, from the album “Gitans” and “La rose de Jaipur” from “Un ciel de Cuivre”, illustrate the extent to which the encounter between these two artists was an emotional one.
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Titi and Gulabo in Jaipur (photo: Véronique Guillien)
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In 2002 a work by both artists was released : “Rakhî ” dedicated to the union of their respective worlds using songs from the cast of the Kalbeliyas, the snake charmers, of whom Gulabi is the emblematic and internationally renowned dancer. "JIVULA", a show uniting her choreography and Titi Robin’s compositions, took form in September 2002 and was performed on numerous French and international stages. With lighting specially created by Pascale Paillard, this new scenic venture was given a very warm reception.
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with "Gulabo" at the Café de la Danse -Paris 2002 (photo: Bill Akwa Bétoté)
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In the same year he composed the entire soundtrack for Manuel Boursinhac’s film “The Code (La Mentale)”. The director wanted Titi’s musical world to accompany his images, while the artist learnt much from this new adventure that he hopes will happen again.
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2004: release of the anthology ALEZANE by Naïve. Presentation of “Alezane” by Thierry “Titi” Robin: “These two records are a selection of recordings made over a period of a dozen years, but draw from some twenty-five years of compositions. In my preceding albums, I have always tried to bring together dance and intimist tracks in the smoothest possible way. Here, on the contrary, we present a panorama by categorising the tracks as either rhythmic tunes (CD I) “Le Jour”) or calmer ones (CD II “La Nuit”).
The true challenge is to express, within an artistic system that has rather more imposed itself on me than been chosen by me, my path as a contemporary musician, all the colours and scents that envelop and go through me. I invited Eric Roux-Fontaine to work on the visual aspects of this project. Eric is a contemporary creator, painter, photographer, involved in gipsy cultures for the past dozen or so years. He agreed to undertake the entire graphic conception of this double album.”
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photo and painting: Eric Roux-Fontaine
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The same year, Eric Roux-Fontaine asked Titi Robin for a series of poetic texts for his book RAJASTHAN, un voyage aux sources gitanes”, published by Garde-Temps. Using writing as a tool, Titi continues his aesthetic research.
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from "Kalakars Colony" (Eric Roux-Fontaine)
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KALI SULTANA l'ombre du ghazal
photo Louis Vincent
KALI SULTANA
L’ombre du ghazal
Autumn 2008 – time: 1h45’
Francis Varis : accordion, arrangement for strings
Ze Luis Nascimento : percussions
Kalou Stalin : gumbass
Renaud Pion : clarinets, saxophones, arrangement for strings
Maria Robin : voice, dance
Anne Berry : viola
Aude Marie Duperret : viola
Véronique Tat : cello
Titi Robin : ‘ud, buzuq, guitar, composition, artistic direction
“When words fail, music raises its voice,” Vladimir Jankelevich used to claim. Titi Robin’s music expresses what words often have difficulty capturing: it speaks of the extreme solitude of the soul, the naked truth of heartfelt emotions, the delicate grandeur of love, the tough but necessary process of learning how to live one’s life, and the fierce sensation, occasionally tinged with violence, that the beauty of the world can stir in each and every one of us. These thoughts and sensations, which can only be conquered within the secret confines of love, are generally those we keep to ourselves, for our normal vocabulary is unable to retranscribe them. However, with the aid of his instruments (guitar, ‘oud, bouzouq), Titi Robin manages to share them with his fellow human beings.
For over thirty years, this restless musician has swum at the confluence of gypsy and Arab cultures. He has surfed the impetuous and majestic poetic wave that flows from the foothills of India through Central Asia down to the banks of the Mediterranean in every direction. But it is impossible to reduce his art to a simple desire to blend sounds and styles, less still to an ambition to concoct an acceptable style of world music. On his new album, Kali Sultana – L’Ombre du Ghazal, Titi Robin proves as never before that his quest is to develop an intensely personal language, straight from the heart and rooted in his flesh, which hugs the topography and fault-lines of a vast interior landscape. A language unlike any other, whose natural eloquence and evocative force are all the more striking because they do not need to resort to words. “As an instrumentalist, I think I know how to tell a story,” he says. “I have a very concrete relationship to music: I say things that are extremely specific and that are always rooted in my own experience. If the musical form I use can make them more tangible for people, then that is of course the course I’ll follow. Kali Sultana is the crystallisation of that idea.”
A long suite arranged in two parts, seven movements and three interludes, this river of an album has the power and flow of a lyric and epic poem. Melodic and rhythmical motifs follow on from one another, answer each other and expound on each other, united by the free inspiration of music which abolishes any distance between improvisation and the written tradition, individual expression and collective dynamics, the fervour of dance and meditative introspection, a commitment to the real world and the aspiration of dreams. As ever in Titi Robin’s music, these motifs weave the outline of a story, in which it is Kali Sultana (the “Black Queen”), who this time takes pride of place.
She is the feminine incarnation of grace, an ideal of beauty that every artist pursues; she is the universal, imaginary and yet ubiquitous muse, whose indescribable and elusive splendour every artist dreams of embracing. As Titi Robin is one of these men whose thirst for beauty is never sated, he has intimate knowledge of it; he has been chosen to paint its portrait and invent a story that leads it, over the course of the album, from the edge of the desert to the feverish heart of the city. “Kali Sultana is a very loaded symbol and she has several faces and several forms. She represents the beauty every artist seeks, and the harmony, the pleasure of making music and meeting the audience for which every improviser strives. Kali Sultana is my name for that quest. This goddess and I go back a long way, as she has sometimes been embodied in the people I have lived and worked with. She can be very violent, but this violence also makes it possible to express and to resolve things. I have always felt it is very important to express the softest things as well as the most violent in my music. That’s also due to my gypsy heritage; we can be very sentimental and very arid, blend spices with honey. We look for that kind of balance in life. We very rarely manage it, but we can sometimes achieve it in art.”
Titi Robin achieves this balance on this album to a large extent through his perfect understanding with his partners. Kali Sultana was developed during several residencies (in Châteaubriand, Angers and Rheims) and on stage, and is built on the close dialogue with this first circle of musicians who, over many years, have become his own body and soul: the bass player Kalou Stalin, the accordion player Francis Varis and the percussion player Zé Luis Nascimento, as well as the clarinettist and saxophonist Renaud Pion. “Every one of us contributed, added his touch to the project, brought in his own personality and culture. That’s also why this music doesn’t talk about music; it talks about our lives. The moment we record is always a concentrate of life; every emotion is heightened. The music on Kali Sultana is like a river with all its tributaries, all the streams that pour into it and sweep along objects which either float on the surface or sink to the bottom. Everyone has played their part in the final result, perhaps even more so in this particular project because the work we did on the tunes, the rhythms, even the very substance of the music, has taken a long time. I am really proud of how everything has come together.”
One of the elements that holds the music together on Kali Sultana is the string section (two violas and a cello). The parts it plays, in arrangements by by Renaud Pion and Francis Varis, settle like a veil over the sculpted shapes made by Titi Robin and his band. “I’d already used strings on the album Ces Vagues and on the soundtrack for the film La Mentale. But this time they take up more space: they are an integral part of the adventure, including in live performances… The soloists give shape to Kali Sultana: their playing, their tunes and their rhythms are its flesh. But then you can’t just let the music wander naked through the desert, through town or on stage… So the strings are its clothing, but they don’t hide its grace and its natural beauty. They are there to emphasise its nobility and to reassure it too, because you always feel vulnerable when you’re naked.”
In this project, which is mainly instrumental, a voice makes two appearances on the second half of Kali Sultana: once in the third movement and once in the Rumba Sultana that precedes the epilogue. Chanting in her vibrant voice, Maria Robin, Titi’s daughter, lends an added intensity to the music, which, throughout the album, celebrates the pre-eminence of singing. “I consider singing to be the purest form of expression. That’s why I’ve accompanied both male and female singers so often. I’m not a singer myself, but in practice I try to make people forget the instruments. I have no particular respect for virtuosity; in fact, I try to be skilful enough so that people forget the technical aspects, and so that people who have heard me play are left with the impression that I have spoken to them, that I have sung something to them. With Kali Sultana, I wanted to champion the idea that my music is a song, and I also wanted the voice and the lyrics to emerge at a particular moment. All of that crystallises out around Maria’s voice and takes on even greater importance because she appears so little.”
In its many individual details and in its structure as a whole as well, the story of Kali Sultana thus reflects the visions and aspirations of a musician who, step by step, digs down ever deeper into the very substance of his desires, his experiences and his impulses. It is precisely because Titi Robin has plumbed the burning heart of his being that he is able to arouse the most ardent and sensitive feelings in his listeners. “I am searching for an ideal form of music that will be the mirror of my inner sky. We feel no greater solitude than within our deepest emotions. But the magic of art is that the expression of our most private feelings can build bridges to the solitude of others. In general, people sense this: there is an echo in the audience and among those who listen to the album, and it creates a bond. That intensity produces incredible pleasure, which helps both the one who causes it and those who receive it to live. This search will go on forever. Are we closer today than we were before or than we will be tomorrow? We don’t know, but this search is what keeps us alive, just like our search for love and beauty.”
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photo Louis Vincent
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Thierry “Titi” Robin is a fringe artist. He is placed within a “World Music” movement that he does not acknowledge, as it seems to him to be motivated by a profound ethnocentricity, creating a barrier between Western “ethnic” music (rock, jazz…) and others! For him, the crossing of music is not a value in itself, but quite simply a reality, his reality. The main thing is to find the right path between the feeling giving rise to the creation and the artistic form used to express it, whether it take a purely traditional form or one that explodes all established codes. Forging his own path, he has taken heed of the encouragement given by eminent artists such as flamenco singers Fosforito and Chano Lobato, as well as the virtuoso oud player Munir Bachir, who have seen in this atypical approach sincerity and authenticity that go well beyond any differences.
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photo: Bill Akwa Bétoté
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