Wednesday Evening Jukebox...

Blanche Biche ("White Doe") is taken from Sécheresse ("Drought") the second album from French-Moroccan experimental musician/vocalist Sophia Djebel Rose, which was a co-release from WV Sorcerer Productions, Oracle Recordings, and Ramble Records in February 2025.

The album is somewhat of an exploration of opposites - it is conversely dark at times, while luminous at others, baroque yet austere, raw and yet refined. Its title promises drought but there is a liquidity and saturation of sound that seems almost ubiquitous. It's quite a beautiful achievement that marries influences of late 60's psychedelic eroticism (think The Velvet Underground's "Venus in Furs"), and the avant-garde experimental folk of her countrywoman, Catherine Riberio. Drones drip with delay, vocal melodies are supple, flowing like liquid, while tempos and moods are fluid.

Blanche Biche is the only track on the album not written by Rose; instead it's her take on a rather macabre 16th century traditional ballad wherein a young woman mysteriously transforms into a white doe at night and is hunted relentlessly by a hunting party of barons and princes. A hunting party that includes her own brother! The girl begs with her mother to intervene, sadly to no avail. In the end it is her brother's hounds who bring her down, and she is then roasted and served as a feast for the nobleman. A lovely story for the kids, no? The lyrics are sung entirely in the original French (as is the entire album), but in Rose's capable hands any language barrier is easily overcome. The track oozes with anxiety and terror, yet is somehow still beautiful, full of longing and loss. It's within these dichotomies, and within the thin gray areas between fact and fiction, between darkness and light, where Rose seems most comfortable as an artist. And I have to say that I for one am very impressed.

-Martin