Photo: JB Millot
Jazz and harp is a delicate combination, not so much because the genre and the instrument can’t work together, per sé, but rather because someone has already seemed to make them work together as well as they could possibly ever work together: Alice Coltrane. But Laura Perrudin does things a little differently—unlike Alice, unlike the rest, unlike anyone else. In this Frenchwoman’s music, sizzling electronics meet soulful song structures, and layered vocals meet subtle rhythms. As Perrudin drums on her custom-made harp, we hear not only the heritage of jazz but also her passion for Golden-Era hip hop grooves. She sets text by Oscar Wilde to music by Björk, tips her hat to Erykah Badu or J Dilla, and all the while does her own thing completely. So the history of the jazz/harp romance isn’t over yet—Laura Perrudin is just warming up.
Laura Perrudin on Facebook