Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp

Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp is a perpetually evolving ‘orchestra’, loosely modelled on the great 20th-century African groups like Tout Puissant Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou and tipping its hat to revolutionary French artist Marcel Duchamp.

New album Ventre Unique – their sixth, and the successor to 2021’s acclaimed We’re Ok But We’re Lost Anyway – is as exuberant as it is emotionally fraught with a dream amalgam of folk, krautrock, post-punk and African rhythms that feels both uncluttered and beautifully organic.

The orchestra was comprised of an international cast of 12 musicians including many OTPMD regulars: Frenchman Gilles Poizat on bugle, lead vocalist Liz Moscarola, two marimba players (Aïda Diop and Elena Beder), two drummers (Gabriel Valtchev and Guillaume Lantonnet), guitarists (Romane Millet and Titi), a trombonist (Gif), a viola-player (Thomas Malnati-Levier), a cellist (Naomi Mabanda) and Bertholet on double bass. Every one of the musicians is a singer too, contributing to the glorious mass of vocals that gives OTPMD songs their emotional resonance and ritualistic power. They also worked with new vocalists: Mara Krastina (who will be more involved with the group in future) from Swiss band Massicot on Smiling Like A Flower and François Marry from French group Frànçois and the Atlas Mountains – you can hear the latter’s distinctively lilting tone on Tout Haut. Following the release of We’re Ok But We’re Lost Anyway also on Swiss label Bongo Joe, the group – a travelling party of 14 people, including two sound engineers – crossed numerous borders themselves, playing around 150 shows and touring in territories they’d never visited before: Canada, USA, the Balkans, Greece.