Alpes

Des informations historiques et culturelles, des renseignements pratiques, des descriptions de circuits et une sélection d'adresses pour découvrir les départements de l'Isère et des Hautes-Alpes : la vallée du Vénéon, le massif de Belledonne, le Vercors, le pays du Buëch et le massif du Dévoluy ainsi que le val d'Allos. …

During the 70's, Catherine Ribeiro & Alpes recorded a string of stunning and successful albums, gathering a few plaudits and yearly awards from specialized press, played throughout Europe and even in Latin America and Northern Africa and are now seen as an iconic group of the hippy 70's in France. Their music is rather experimental and hard to define and involves folk, progressive and improvisation. Their use of seldom-seen percuphone and cosmophone (both alpine instruments), their lengthy Poème Non-Epique pieces, Ribeiro's anarchist avant-garde and ecologist lyrics and doomed atmosphere (there is some VdGG feel in their music) made this group a very distinct and very original group that has their own sound. In a similar vocal style to Brigitte Fontaine, Catherine Ribeiro's low voice tone may also evoke Nico at times and is theatrical and declamatory.

Une plongée au coeur des Alpes, dont les sociétés montagnardes sont menacées de disparition. Le récit est suivi d'entretiens avec Sophie Boizard, rédactrice en chef de la revue L'Alpe, François Damilano, guide de haute montagne, et Caroline Audibert, écrivaine. …

Born in 1941 and raised on a working-class family, she starts her carreer as an actrice. Her first appearance was in 1963 Jean-Luc Godard's film "Les Carabiniers" where she met Patrice Moullet (acting the principal role). It was in 1967 that Moullet, then interested in music, proposed to compose music for her poetry. They formed the band 2 BIS (soon to be renamed ALPES) and proved the ideal vehicle for Ribeiro's extraordinary voice, on the seven classic albums they produced together. Ahead of a conventional rock format, their music was a unique amalgam of progressive underground, with vast spacey instrumental passages due to Moullet's home-made instruments (percuphone, cosmophone & orgolia), much improvised weirdness and a strong folk influence.