Stranded Horse announces new album "Luxe" out Jan 29, 2016

In late 2012, the year after Yann Tambour aka Stranded Horse last graced us with an album, "Humbling Tides", the itinerant composer/multi-instrumentalist dispatched a postcard in the form of a 7” from Dakar, Senegal, where he had undertaken a residency at the city’s French Institute. Its two tracks – including an unlikely cover, a pitch-perfect take on the Joy Division classic ’Transmission – displayed Tambour’s own, increasingly assured kora playing, tightly woven with that of distinguished local player Boubacar Cissokho, the cousin and protege of erstwhile Tambour collaborator Ballake Sissoko; further augmented by fulani violin and balafon.

A second trip to Senegal followed in summer 2013. Finally home for a spell in late 2013, and with a set of recordings from the two Dakar trips as a jump-off point, Yann began working on the next chapter, undertaking further sessions closer to home in Paris and Nantes, augmenting the Dakar material and adding new tracks. The end result is ’Luxe’ (’Luxury’ in English), the new Stranded Horse album and the strongest progression yet along the path embarked upon with debut LP ’Churning Strides’, 8 years ago.

(Trailer album Céline Lixon)

Originating from Normandy, Yann Tambour began recording in 2001 under the name Encre, a project combining samples of strings, piano and voice. Following a series of album and EP releases under that name and having returned to his original instrument, the classical guitar, Yann started to experiment with the kora (the lute-bridge-harp made from calabash gourd and cowhide commonly played in West Africa), gradually developing his own playing technique and soon building his own lighter, more compact versions of the instrument. Marrying this with his singular approach to the singer/songwriter mode, Stranded Horse (formerly Thee, Stranded Horse) came into being in the mid-noughties. ‘Luxe’ is Stranded Horse third album after ‘Humbling Tides’ (2012) and ‘Churning Strides’ (2007), with material from the latter reinterpreted on a 2008 EP and tour with feted Malian kora player Ballaké Sissoko. Meanwhile, Yann’s instrument-building endeavours continue – his most recent creation being a chromatic kora with harp levers, made out of keno wood, maple and formica christened the ‘formikora’.

Standed Horse will be touring europe as a duo, a 5-piece and a 6-piece throughout 2016.

STRANDED HORSE "Luxe" 1. Monde – 2. A Faint Light – 3. Ode To Scabbies – 4. Refondre les Hémisphères – 5. My Name Is Carnival – 6. Sharp Tongues – 7. A Qui Dois-tu Montrer les Dents ? – 8. Dakar – 9. Unusual Ways