It always gets most exciting in music when an artist becomes the link between what you know and like and something new and challenging. In the best case, you can also hear his development and where he comes from. Malika Tirolien gave such a beautiful, moving moment in the Unterfahrt.
The singer, who comes from the French overseas department of Guadeloupe (more precisely from Marie Galant, a small, very rural and traditional island off the island), has lived in Montreal for 20 years Snarky Puppy-environment became known. She was already on their first (of now five) Grammy-winning album “Family Dinner” from 2013. Collective mastermind Michael League then basically founded the band for them bokanté, where she could and should sing in Creole. A clear case with this history: The basic tone of Tirolien’s excellently trained voice is soulful and funky.
She could have set herself up comfortably in this proven and popular corner, but Tirolien clearly wants more with her own projects. The program presented in the Unterfahrt, fed by the album “Sur La Voie Ensoleillée” released in 2014 and above all the current “Higher” (the first two of a planned tetralogy dedicated to the four elements), goes far beyond the usual neo-soul – cosmos out.
With her first-class band, she creates a spiritually charged total work of art with a strong Afro-Futurist touch. Psychedelic synth pads alternate with driving beats, amazing vocalises with French-Creole rap interludes, powerful female empowerment (“Sisters”) with the filigree setting of a religious poem (“Priere”) by her grandfather Guy Tirolien. What may sound contradictory in the description fit together harmoniously at the concert – mediated by the strong Creole personality of Malika Tirolien.