The Bonbon Flamme quartet – French extrovert cellist, its founder and main composer, Valentin Ceccaldi, and drummer-electronics player Étienne Ziemniak, Portuguese noise guitarist Luís Lopes, and Belgian pianist, synth player-vocalist Fulco Ottervanger – began as a free improvising unit, as documented on its self-titled debut album (Clean Feed, 2023), and described by Guillaume Malvoisin as «fluorescent, raging and burning delight».
Bonbon Flamme’s second album, Calaveras Y Boom Boom Chupitos, was recorded at BMC Studio in Budapest, and was released by the Hungarian BMC Records. It tells a completely different story. It was conceived after Ceccaldi’s 2024 trip to Mexico. He returned home full of inspiring experiences, about the vibrant colors of nature and streets, the acidity of lemon, the sweetness of avocado, the fire of chilli pepper, the omnipresent violence and death, and the relationship with ancestors and with religion. These experiences were channeled and distilled into the ten pieces.
Calaveras Y Boom Boom Chupitos offers a wild ride full of contrasts, or a hyper-colourful but nuanced sonic pastiche of lyrical and sometimes even childish and sentimental melodies, noisy, metallic guitar outbursts, sparse, meditative soundscapes, epic prog-rock synths and drum rolls, and fiery free jazz (that covers Scott Joplin’s old-time jazz gem, «The Ragtime Dance»), often within the same cacophonic piece. This journey within the sweet and spicy jungle of sounds flows organically into the unknown and unpredictable. It suggests how the singular musicians of Bonbon Flamme have established an adventurous aesthetics of their own, openly emotional and naive, seductive, and raw and uncompromising, but always focused on freedom and fun.
Eyal Hareuveni
Valentin Ceccaldi (cello, synthesizer), Luís Lopes (guitar, synthesizer), Fulco Ottervanger (upright piano, synthesizers, voice), Étienne Ziemniak (drums, electronics, synthesizer)
