Babel Babel stares the era straight in the eyes at the crossroads of new musical maps, strange and magnificent, impressive and unreasonable. A dense, double-length fourteenth studio album—seventeen tracks—feverish, unsettling.
Also because it goes against the grain of a music industry obsessed with the influence of TikTok and short formats. But asking for caution and wisdom would be too much from these eternal children of disorder. Detached from any form of calculation, Indochine returns to the front with their unyielding energy to confront the world.
Seven years after the album 13 (more than 500,000 copies sold, diamond record), a record gap in their rich discography. However, the band neither drifted away nor embraced laziness, releasing two volumes of Singles Collection which also sold over 500,000 copies to celebrate their fortieth anniversary, and the unreleased Nos célébrations, quickly embraced as a staple in their repertoire.
They also collaborated with Christine and the Queens on a dazzling electronic reimagining of 3Sex, then embarked on a triumphant Central Tour, filling 6 stadiums (with a record attendance of 99,000 spectators at the Stade de France). With their initial schedule disrupted by the health crisis, Indochine instinctively reversed their creative process. For the first time, the five core members wrote and composed in the midst of preparing for concert dates.
There’s no doubt: it’s this live energy that has breathed such overwhelming life into this album, taking it far, far away. Many work sessions, begun in Brussels in June 2021, were interspersed with geographical stops in Paris, London, and a final stretch in the Belgian capital in August 2023. Resetting the counters, without setting any objectives except never to repeat themselves, summarizes the band’s state of mind.
Babel Babel, a title echoing the myth of the tower, is a biblical reflection on human vanity. It symbolizes today’s world, where confusion reigns supreme, noise is dominant, and humanity is crushed by its inability to communicate.
The album cover, created by the renowned American photographer David LaChapelle, delivers a humanistic message in response to the political and verbal violence of a society losing its bearings. There’s a touch of Bosch and Géricault in this majestic illustration, a blend of tradition and futuristic vision. In this album, the combination of shapeless, unifying melodies and sharp, sudden shifts forms a sacred union.
The powerful, impeccably produced sound unifies these maelstrom compositions, striking with its abundant, full arrangements and nerve-wracking intensity. The band benefits from the haute couture mixing of Mark „Spike“ Stent (The Rolling Stones, Depeche Mode, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Beyoncé, Coldplay, The Beatles, Miley Cyrus), whom Nicola Sirkis reunites with forty-one years after Le péril jaune, where Stent served as an assistant producer.
Babel Babel scans the horizons in every direction and intersects with Blur, MGMT, New Order, Volodymyr Zelensky, former Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin, Henry Kissinger, the poet-painter-playwright Oscar Kokoschka, Peter Pan, love and war, hope and death, lies and the Christ-like, road movies and gender, the fantastical and the choral singing of the band members‘ children, and the inaudible clamor of the world’s televisions.
From the more personal than ever writing of Nicola Sirkis, deeply affected by the loss of close friends and relatives—the time of the departed—and also by the Russo-Ukrainian conflict—he has Moldovan roots—emerges a vocabulary that is often as combative, especially in Ma vie est à toi, as it is esoteric or unwilling to bow down.
The album opens with the imposing Showtime, a song fueled by a long, incandescent introduction inspired by a line from a book by Chloé Mons („And I always sleep with someone on the first night and in my mind, yes, it’s always for life“), shared in unison with the voice of Ana Perrote, singer of the Spanish band Hinds. There’s also Le chant des cygnes, purely in line with Indochine’s musical DNA, with a catchy chorus already embraced by fans, an anthem for the European Football Championship, and a piece used by the German TV channel ZDF for the Olympics. A powerful symbol, knowing that Nicola Sirkis wrote this track for Iranian women (the city of girls) who defy the mandatory wearing of the veil.
There’s also the massive sound of Victoria, driven by a dizzying disco rhythm break, the continuation of the beautiful textual collaboration with novelist Chloé Delaume (No name, Le garçon qui rêve), a surprising electro-reggae breakthrough (La belle et la bête), and a sparkling hook (L’amour fou). There’s also a lively duet with Marion Brunetto of Requin Chagrin, a band signed to the KMS label (Girlfriend), and especially two fully symphonic tracks recorded at Air Studios in London (Le garçon qui rêve and the moving Seul au paradis). And finally, there are intimate and epic gusts of wind that strike the mind and the veins, promising to turn into real storms on stage.
The album Babel Babel is on its way to the future
Stream o Spotify:
.https://open.spotify.com/album/2rq8rG48fLvgQgpOqpw1Vf?si=ZzWSGwslRrKuRUPzCH2Zxw