Elizabeth Vogler - Le Carnaval Perdu LP
Elizabeth Vogler has built quite a reputation as a live performer, and anyone who has heard them in concert can probably still feel the shivers. Their studio work is no less impressive, and after two magnificent albums released in 2024 and 2025 on Bientôt Veuves and Billo, they are back with this new full-length, co-produced by Editentités, Illogique Musique and La République des Granges.
A fan of pop music and bal folk, trained in electroacoustic composition and Bulgarian polyphonic singing, Elizabeth Vogler brings all these influences together in this new album, undoubtedly their boldest recorded work to date.
Elizabeth Vogler’s music unfolds primarily around their powerful voice,the languages they invent and the many vocal techniques they explore, making their whole body resonate and ours along with it. Both live and on record, they pair themselves with a shruti box, an Indian drone instrument related to the harmonium. From beneath its sustained notes, layers of recorded and processed sounds gradually emerge and build upon one another. At times, their voice itself becomes raw material, transformed and woven into the other electroacoustic elements underpinning their tracks, until the boundaries between instruments begin to blur.
Amid this tangle of sounds, we can make out bursts of voices and celebration occasionally break through, sweeping us into a strange and colourful carnival. This motif runs throughout the album and all the way to its cover, illustrated by Elizabeth Vogler with enigmatic figures dressed in costumes drawn from traditional celebrations, seemingly mourning a carnival forever vanished. This connection to folk and popular arts also finds its way into some of their lyrics, written in Béarnais, their home region’s variety of Occitan.
What is certain is that this blend of influences and musical styles is neither accidental nor calculated, but the product of Elizabeth Vogler’s own history and journey. On this album, they invite us into their personal folklore as one might throw oneself into the swirl of a carnival dance : wholeheartedly.
