R.Burger / O.Cadiot

This album is the results of a live performance from Rodolphe Burger and Olivier Cadiot. It took place in July 1999, centered around the language " welche ", it was part of the Babel festival in Strasbourg, and then became the subject of a radio broadcast by France Culture in September of the same year. The live performance was the outcome of an exploration of the Welche Territory (in a Vosgean small valleys which is near petite Lièpvre river, where Kat Onoma's leader, Rodolphe Burger owns a farm-studio), it consisted of a projection of films followed by a concert integrating and handling the sound aspect of these documents.

The concert set-up was as follows :
Rodolphe Burger : vocals, guitare, sampler
Olivier Cadiot : computer
Marco de Oliveira : bass, programming

The album consists of the complete recording of the concert (5 titles) as well as the rough video documents which were used for it. The language welche, which is actually a local dialect, is a unique survival. Roman territory surrounded by Germanic land (the word welche means " not German " in German language...), it is only spoken by a thousand people living in and around a small number of valleys of the Alsatian Vosges. It will probably disappear in a few years.
The survival of the Welche language until year 2000 is explained partly by the succession of the German occupations. During the last war, the Welche survived as a sign of resistance to the German linguistic dictatorship. It was very often the language of the smugglers in these areas of mountain and border.

The project of Burger and Cadiot was not about celebrating a certain "heritage". But they wanted to meet the welche speaking population and to let inspiration brew from these meetings, in order to produce a strange and singular object: mixing of Welche elements with the musical work of the one and the literary work of the other.

TRACK LISTING
1) "C'est dans la vallée" : (It is in the valley): mixing "Moonshiner", ' le chant du bouilleur de cru" (old American folk song once sung by Dylan), with the voice of Mr Humbert, Welche inhabitant of the valley of Petite Lièpvre.
2)"Tante Elisabeth" : (Aunt Elisabeth): traditional welche song sung by Mrs Rosa, of Labaroche, and put in music by RB
3) "Zo Love" : litany created from the translation in welche of a poem of Olivier Cadiot, with the voice of Mr Baradel, from Fréland. The poem is about the river Lièpvrette, which runs in the valley of petite Lièpvre, and forms the border of the Welche territory.
4) "Try to understand": the river still, but this time out of the Welche context. It is a cover version of "the trap", (a original song by Kat Onoma), mixed by Olivier Cadiot with the voice of the poet Jack Spicer reading " Billy The Kid " in a small bookshop of San Francisco in 1959.
5) "on n'est pas indiens c'est dommage" (we are not Indians, it is a shame) : this phrase was pronounced by Mrs Bauman, from Orbey, at a meeting devoted to the translation of Navajo songs and texts of Olivier Cadiot. The track mixes quotations of songs and samples sound which all come from the voices of Mr Humbert and Baradel, and Mss Rosa and Bauman.

RODOLPHE BURGER
originates from Valley of Sainte Mary au Mines, where the small valley of Petite Lièpvre river is found. Place of realisation in "on n'est pas des indiens, c'est dommage". He is the founder member of the group Kat Onoma (6 albums released by EMI). Author of 3 solo albums, he also collaborated to the albums of Francoise Hardy, Alain Bashung...

OLIVIER CADIOT
publishes novels on POL editions (l'Art poétic', Roméo et Juliette 1, Futur, ancien fugitif, le Colonel des Zouaves...). As well as writing novels he also writes songs and performs live with various artists including Pascal Dusapin, George Aperghis, Rodolphe Burger and Alain Bashung.