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Not Inspired by Butterflies

By Thomas Burkhalter on May 12, 2012

By Thomas Burkhalter and Simon Grab on 12 May 2012 in  AUDIO

Rapper La Gale is half Swiss and half Lebanese. In our Norient Podcast she talks about her political message and her first CD.

La Gale (Foto Thomas Burkhalter)

Rapper Karine Guignard aka La Gale is half Swiss and half Lebanese. She arose from the Lausanne punk- and DIY-scene. Rapping straight forwards without ornaments, a continuous storm of phrases. She raps about social grievance in Switzerland and about the injustice of global politics in the Middle East. «We are a rich country and never had colonies; yet we have a lot of blood on our hands», says Guignard in the interview with Norient. La Gale is rebelling – via microphone at mid-pitch, with clearly articulated content.

She found the perfect producer for her first CD: Christian Pahud of Lausanne electro-rock combo «Larytta». His bass-lines vibrate deeply, combined with dark beats, full of noise and distortion. Sounds, as if a hammer would hit wire mesh, lashing cuts, blended with samples from old movies, and some infrequent scratches. In contrast, the playful side of Larytta: Electro-pop melodies and rare oriental twists, sometimes quite catchy. This fits perfectly with La Gale: «The music shall be dark yet moving», she says: «Indeed; sunshine, flowers and butterflies are not that inspiring for me, still they give me energy in order to protest against the dark side of life.»

Podcast

CD (Vitesse Records / Irascible)

Sonic Traces: From Switzerland

Norient spoke to La Gale in the context of the project Sonic Traces: From Switzerland.

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Authors:

Thomas Burkhalter, an ethnomusicologist, music journalist and cultural producer from Bern (Switzerland), runs the research project «Global Niches – Music in a transnational World» at the Zurich University of the Arts. He is the founder and editor-in-chief of norient – Network for Local and Global Sounds and Media Culture. He produced and tours with the audio-visual performances «Sonic Traces: From the Arab World», «Sonic Traces: From Switzerland», co-curates the norient Musikfilm Festival), and co-directed the documentary film «Buy More Incense» (2002) about Indian and Pakistani musicians of second and third generation in the UK. His dissertation «Creating Sense out of Chaos: New Sounds from Beirut« researched empirically experimental and popular music in Lebanon (University of Bern and Oldenburg, 2009). His book «Local Music Scenes and Globalization: Transnational Platforms in Beirut» is going to be published by Routledge in 2013.
More : Info

Simon Grab is a musician and producer from Zurich.
Website: ganzerplatz.ch

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4 responses to “Not Inspired by Butterflies”

  1. Sonic Traces: From Switzerland
    May 12, 2012 at 8:28 am |

    [...] Jing, Aarburg > Wael Sami, Bern > Meduoteran, Trimbach > Festival Ear We Are, Biel > La Gale > Tim & Puma Mimi > Kate Wax > Bittuner > Cyril Schläpfer, > Filewile > [...]

  2. Rapping the norient
    August 13, 2012 at 2:23 pm |

    [...] Not Inspired by Butterflies By Thomas Burkhalter and Simon Grab [...]

  3. Hip-Hop ist nicht blosse Unterhaltung
    November 29, 2012 at 2:21 pm |

    [...] dabei das Establishment zwischen Beirut und Kairo. Heute, Do 29.11.2012, tritt sie mit der Rapperin La Gale in der Mahogany Hall in Bern auf. Malikah (picture by Tanya [...]

  4. Mashed-Up Switzerland
    April 16, 2013 at 1:12 pm |

    [...] Berlin > The National Fanfare of Kadebostany, Genf > Schweizer Nationalphonotek, Lugano > La Gale, Lausanne >Wildlife!, Bern >Swiss Conspiracy, Melbourne, Paris > Patricia Bosshard, [...]

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