NUBU

NUBU is a collective ensemble, a quintet with an unconventional instrumentation whose members come from diverse backgrounds. Blending jazz, folk songs, and improvisation, NUBU creates its own unique folk tradition—music that is as timeless as it is contemporary. The group playfully brings together instruments from different eras: the serpent (Elisabeth Coxall), the European ancestor of the tuba that long accompanied church choirs; the flugabone (Victor Auffray), designed more recently for its practicality in marching bands; the trombone (Thibaut Du Cheyron), whose mechanism has remained virtually unchanged since its invention; animal-skin percussion instruments such as the shamanic drum and the frame drum (Guillaume Lys), and the double bass (Marion Ruault), whose wood echoes that of the serpent. The absence of a harmonic instrument and a high-pitched instrument could be seen as a constraint; NUBU (Nahash Urban Brass Unit) turns this into its playground to explore the blend of the three wind instruments’ timbres and to incorporate human voices. With NUBU, the voices form a distinct, elastic, bouncy texture, infused with rhythmic cadence, yodeling, and cries. Lead singer Elisabeth Coxall has tremendous freedom to stretch her range into the high notes. Inspired by Anglo-Saxon folk and Renaissance songs, the group revives an oral tradition and “twists” it with explosive, powerfully energizing improvisations. By playfully drawing on different eras, NUBU offers the serpent—with the mystical significance it suggests and its long-forgotten timbre—an unexpected place in a breathtaking present.”

Line-up:

• Elisabeth Coxall (serpent)
• Victor Auffray (flugabone)
• Thibaut Du Cheyron (trombone)
• Marion Ruault (double bass)
• Guillaume Lys (percussion)