Katia & Marielle Labèque

The Times: The best classical albums of 2025 so far

the ambient, the minimalistic, the sacred and secular…..Is there beauty in all this? Certainly, particularly when Hannigan’s fluid voice spirals high above Katia and Marielle Labèque’s patterned capers or the interesting textures generated from synthesisers, laptop, and a jungle of wiring by the French composer and musician David Chalmin. Excitement? Some of that too in the gutsier stretches of the new pieces by Bryce Dessner. . ….. A gift from God? Or the work of the devil?

- Geoff Brown

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TRACKLIST

1. O virga mediatrix (Arr. for Soprano, Pianos and Electronic by David Chalmin) 7:46
2. Research #1 (David Chalmin, Katia Labèque e Marielle Labèque) 3:41
3. Che t'ho fatt'io? 4:46
4. O orzchis Ecclesia 6:32
5. Lingua ignota 5:49
6. Che si può fare?, Pt. 1 8:51
7. Che si può fare?, Pt. 2 (Arr. for Soprano, Pianos and Electronic by David Chalmin) 5:06
8. O nobilissima viriditas 7:40
9. O vis aeternitatis (Arr. for Soprano, Pianos and Electronic by David Chalmin)

Out on May 9 2025

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Le Disque classique du jour: un cosmos sonore intense et unique.
—RADIO FRANCE

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In total, there’s more than an hour of extremely varied and accomplished music-making on this disc, recorded in 2022-23 at La Fabrique des Ondes in Saint-Pée-sur-Nivelle. Obviously the engineering is integral to the end results, and there’s some fascinating stuff going on

—MYSCENA.ORG

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...like a fever dream ...mesmerizing, melismatic….subtle, droning electronics.… larger dreamscape.both ethereal and sensual , this performance would make a fitting soundtrack for that unknowable journey.

—Tom Huizenga GEORGIA PUBLIC BROADCASTING, NPR

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un pont entre quelques grandes musiciennes des temps jadis, et celles d’aujourd’hui, avec la complicité du compositeur américain Bryce Dessner, dans une mise en son électronique de David Chalmin aux synthétiseurs. …..profondément original …...un large souffle incluant improvisation et post-minimalisme pour un voyage très spécial à travers confluences et convergences.

—François Hudry/Qobuz

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Bryce Dessner, David Chalmin: Electric Fields
Performance ****
Sonics ****½
The plans for this recording began with the Labèque sisters….. Together with Chalmin's space-age electronics, these are as much from another time as they are out of this world.I was quite taken by the two-part reframing of Strozzi's "Che Si Può Fare?" . It begins with an almost nine-minute improvisation by Hannigan, Katia Labèque, and Chalmin with multiple loops and overdubs. There's a lot to savor, including a section that borders on madwoman melodramatics. The second half, Chalmin's arrangement of the Strozzi composition, gives the Labèque sisters ample opportunities to shine.

—Jason Victor Serinus. May 2025 Classical Record Reviews | Stereophile.com