Samy Thiébault - Awé! (Les Inédits) (2023) Hi Res

In April 2021 we had just finished two and a half years of intense work with a team spread across three continents. “Awé!” struck us as a rolling river of an album, telling its own origin story over the course of 24 tracks that were clearly unfixed, stylistically speaking, but that were full of charm to our ears…

Just when our CDs were about to be pressed, our sound engineer, Phillipe Teissier du Cros, asked us, “What will happen if a DJ in Rio decides to play “Awé!”? How will he choose his tracks in the middle of a triple album? It needs to be tightened up so that it all becomes absolutely clear, even if that means telling the story in several parts…” The weight of his argument got heavier as the night wore on, and after a few margaritas we came to the conclusion that we would have to balance things, to streamline. As a result, “Awé!” is a two-part album, and here is the second installation, called “Awé!: Les Inédits”.

The pieces that make up this second part are stylistic responses to many of the tracks on the original album. The clear hip-hop groove of “Electric Carnival” is a reply to the samba track “Blue Carnival”. “Alma Furiosa” is the electrified version of the bolero track “Alma del Sur”. And “Wild Song” is an acoustic reply eyeing the most modern experiments of the jazz groove of “Wild”… and there are many others in the same vein.

But some of the tracks in this new repertoire are replies to nothing other than themselves. The calypso track “Anoucheh’s Hips”, elevated by the voice of Cuban singer Carlos Miguel Hernandez is one example, and another is “Danza de la realidad”.

The original “Awé!” album has three physical manifestations. Its reflection had to be purely digital, and it had to be available in an original digital space. We chose the platform Bandcamp for its closeness between artist and audience, with no middleman and guaranteed fair compensation.

This second part of “Awé!” is not an ending, however. Like any story, we hope that it lives on forever, and that we’ll continue to share it with you.