Hamlet

This record could be presented as the first collaboration album by Robert Le Magnifique and the 2 members of Abstrackt Keal Agram (Tepr and My dog is gay). But that just wouldn't say enough.

Saying that the music on this record is the soundtrack to "Hamlet" as it was stage directed in its first version by David Gauchard in 2004 is important as a detail but not quite true...

David Gauchard, Limoges based stage director, encounters Robert Le Magnifique and Abstrackt Keal Agram's music around 2002, when working on the direction of "Ekatérina Ivanovna" by Léonid Andréïev. He experiments then to have Robert Le Magnifique on stage during shows playing music based on a theme by Gorecki specially made for the occasion. The convincing result brings him to go further with the theatre/electronic music confrontation always trying to find what these recently appeared musics can bring to an artistic expression older than 2500 years.

For this first stage direction of "Hamlet" (after André Markowicz's translation), his purpose was to avoid having a music composed for an already established stage direction (like drama and cinema usually do) but rather to have the three composers work on the strong themes of the play before any stage direction work. The basic idea being that for once, music could influence the work in stage direction and the comedians' interpretations. It is important to remind that both stage director and label idwet had clearly ordered a record in the first place. This "raw material" being then altered during the creation of the play. During shows, spectators could hear themes, melodies and atmospheres of the record but in alternate or remixed versions. This way of working quickly appeared as obvious knowing that all those concerned with the project found it important not to have a "plainly illustrative" music (as is often the case in drama) also that the record and the play could have separate independent parallel lives. Each one being then appreciated by a listener or a spectator independently.

Concerning the texts of this record, whether they are spoken, slammed, rapped or sung, they are all taken from the translation of Hamlet by André Markowicz, except track "Hier", written and interpreted by Arm, Psykick Lyrikah's rapper.