Sages comme des sauvages, a worldplay.

Sages comme des sauvages is a… Read Full Bio ↴Sages comme des sauvages, a worldplay.

Sages comme des sauvages is a French duo that implies much more than one country and two people: their debut album Largue la peau is furrowed by journeys and returns, musing and borrowings. Their instrumentarium is linked to their lives.

Ismaël brought back a bouzouki from Greece (where Ava grew up), and a cavaquinho from Brazil (where his mother lived for a while). Ava plays a rare Greek tambourine called defi, that she sets on her lap, inserting her knees inside the drum and hitting the metal jingles with a Chinese chopstick she found in the kitchen. They each write their own songs, composing together, each following their natural slope, Ismaël favoring sophistication, Ava more inclined towards the unvarnished. They are obsessed with music from La Réunion and love to sing in creole.

The name “Sages comme des sauvages” is a pun, a wordplay. In French, the expression “sages comme des images” means to be seen and not heard, literally “tamed/wise as a picture/image”. By replacing the word image with savage, the duet implies that the wise ones might not be as tamed as they seem and certainly no silent postcards. Like any good pun, their name is hard to translate, but no more than Einstürzende Neubauten.

Their debut album “Largue la peau” (Drop the skin) was released in France in September 2015 and was well received by the national radios. Since then the duet has been touring intensively across France and Belgium, spreading their unique songs, subtly cobbled together, intuitive and knowledgeable at the same time, woven in colourful moving figures, unexpected rhythms and harmonies.