Al'Tarba La Fin Des Contes

A short four years after his last solo album "La nuit se lève", Al'Tarba returns in 2022 with a new offering, "La Fin des Contes" (The End of Tales). This album comes after a number of collaborative LPs: Rogue Monsters with Senbeï, two albums with the rapper Swift Guad and 'Le Cabinet des Curiosités Vol.I'. In this new album "La Fin des Contes" (The End of Tales), Al'Tarba offers us an immersive experience in a universe that is sometimes fairy tale-like, sometimes nightmarish. From the horrific bad dream to the luminous nursery rhyme, "La Fin des Contes" is already the consecration of one of his most accomplished projects.

With the release of this new opus, as well as a brand new live album in preparation, the year 2022 promises to be a theatrical one for Al'Tarba. If the previous solo opus offered us a hallucinated ballad in the underbelly of a city plagued by crime, "La Fin des Contes" plunges us into the imagination of a child who explores the magical and nightmarish limbo of tales. The artist thus draws on the ambiguities of these stories, which often leave a lifelong mark on our deepest subconscious. True to his characteristic eclecticism and in the manner of his key album "Lullabies for Insomniacs" (2011), Al'Tarba reveals himself once again through an album of flickering atmospheres - just as luminous and fantastic as dark and tortured.

During the 15 tracks of tis project, we come across soft Lo-fi lullabies, pure moments of abstract hip-hop sorcery, passing through a disarticulated Breakcore and crossing powerful trap and UK Drill sounds.

This eclectic mix produces an incredibly coherent whole, unfolding throughout the project like an initiatory journey. You are propelled into the middle of a tale for adults, in which the sonic spectres of another era cross paths with the golem of modern times, armed with big Bass 808s and gargantuan synthesizers.

Like characters inhabiting this contrasting universe, Al'Tarba has invited on the album several special guests that the listener will come across throughout the story: reggae singer Lyricson, rappers Mad Squablz and Dooz Kawa, flamenco singer Paloma Pradal, as well as Bianca Casady, half of the iconic group Cocorosie.

Al'Tarba also contributes to the narrative, on the punk ballad 'Little Girl' and on the intensive 'Festin' accompanied by his crew Droogz Brigade - arguably one of the most impressive tracks in their discography to date.

Completing the concept, we find three tales imagined by Al'Tarba and put into letters by Charlotte Vinsous and Stick, then told by the actor David Ayala, parentheses in this unusual and timeless sound journey.