Ten years ago, La Tène released their first record, then as a trio with Cyril Bondi, d?Incise, and Alexis Degrenier. A decade, four albums, and multiple collaborations later, the group returns with Moreïne/Déclives an album that feels as much like a celebration as it does an upheaval. True to its identity, La Tène continues to explore the cracks between tradition and experimentation, between hypnotic drone and repeated gestures, but this time they choose to move onto new ground: the hurdy-gurdy, the group?s emblematic instrument since the very beginning, disappears in favor of a stripped-down setup centered on two electronic percussions and live dub work. This is not a mere stylistic twist: it is about transforming a constraint into a creative drive. Alexis Degrenier, long associated with the telluric sound of the hurdy-gurdy, can no longer play it. Yet he remains, above all, recognized as a percussionist and composer. With his companions, he decided to inscribe this transition into the very heart of the album: a way of thumbing their nose at fate, of turning a great and beautiful page, and of reminding us that La Tène has always fed on accidents, detours, and bifurcations. Moreïne/Déclives is a warm and intense album, one that carries forward the band?s uncompromising universe while reshaping it from within. The roughness of wood and metal now resonates alongside electronic textures; the mechanical pulse of machines intertwines with the organic breath of the harmonium; and dub layers blur the reference points like shifting mirrors. Repetition, La Tène?s vital engine, becomes here even more mineral, almost incandescent, carving sonic landscapes that feel at once archaic and futuristic. This new album also marks an intimate milestone: it is Alexis Degrenier?s final recording with La Tène. He leaves without turmoil or dramatic separation, but as one might step away from a house built together - with gratitude and pride. Neither rupture nor reformation: simply the closing of a cycle, making space for other possibilities. For life, as we know, only turns once?and this record keeps a luminous trace of it. Moreïne/Déclives is thus both a farewell and a celebration, a culmination and a promise. It tells the story of a group that, for ten years, has refused compromise in order to invent its own language. And if this album is the last with Alexis, it carries within it the certainty that it will continue - beyond its groove - to resonate: for long, loud, and otherwise. (Text: Presseinfo)
