L'Nfer, un point de détail

Frank Zappa & Benedict XVI

Is L’Nfer by the young French composer François Sarhan (b. 1972) a concert, musical theatre, a radio play or live radio? Is it beat poetry, new music or post-rock? It is all of these things.

Together with nine musicians, this composer-actor-conductor-singer attacks politics and current musical developments. And does so using computers, samples and a whole range of voices that determine the course of the music. The sources are diverse, ranging from pre-recorded voices (children, preachers), experimental rock (Soft Machine, Robert Wyatt and Frank Zappa) and original music by Sarhan himself. All this follows in succession as on the radio; world news mixed with all sorts of titbits (pope Benedict XVI abolishing the notion of limbo, the state of aviation, lost persons notices in the London underground, and so on).

Ictus’ instrumentation is very much in the rock style (clarinet, trumpet, guitars, Hammond organ, violin, double bass, bass guitar, drums, computer and voices) and switches with astounding ease from pop to modern classics and spoken word.