Matthieu Saglio
Al Alba

For Download/Stream, click here 

Camille Saglio - voice, shakers
Matthieu Saglio - cello, palmas, vocals on #8, 10, 14
Gabriel Saglio - bass clarinet on #9

Produced by Camille and Matthieu Saglio
Music and lyrics by Camille and Matthieu Saglio, except #2 (Lhasa de Sela),
#7 (Lewis Allan), and #11 (Bertrand Can-tat, Serge Teyssot-Gay, Jean-Paul Roy, Denis Barthe)
Recorded on June 24 and mixed on August 24 at Studio de l'Île,
Chalonnes-sur-Loire, France by Alban Cointe
Cello bases recorded on April 24 at La Seta Azul Estudis,
Benicàssim, Spain, by Juan Carlos Tomás
Mastered on September 24 at Blockhaus DY 10, Nantes, France,
by Florian Tatard
“Strange Fruit” © Edward B. Marks Music Company, all rights
administered by Warner Chappell Music France
“Con Toda Palabra” © Éditorial Avenue
“Le Vent Nous Portera” © ND Musique,
Universal Music Publishing France

Cover art by Federico Herrero, “Chorus”, 2021, with kind permission of the artist


"Al Alba" – ‘at dawn’ in Spanish – brings together through music two people whose connection with each other is close and lifelong: brothers Matthieu and Camille Saglio. Cellist Matthieu studied classical music in Rennes in Brittany and then settled in the Spanish city of Valencia. He is driven by a passion to explore different sound cultures, combining them with influences from jazz and world music. Vocalist Camille started to take a serious and passionate interest in music at the age of twelve, beguiled by his older brother’s enthusiasm for the cello. The instrument Camille would decide to adopt as his means of expression was his own singing voice.

This is the brothers' first album together, and it has a spiritual dimension to it. It is about transitions and boundaries, about being in states of flux and how that affects music and people. There is a hint of the Celtic-Breton, especially in a leaning towards minor-key melancholy. Flamenco is also present, giving a taut rhythmic framework, but also connecting to the dreams and arabesques of the Mediterranean sound world. And Mathieu Saglio's rigorous classical training allows him great facility and breadth of choice when it comes to composition, as well as a particularly refined sound. Matthieu Saglio’s ways of working have led him to major successes, notably the creation of multi-layered, cross-border music in the flamenco crossover ensemble "Jerez-Texas” and the trio "NES" with the singer/cellist/ACT artist Nesrine, and also through the projects in his own name, both as leader and at the centre of a web of collaboration - on the ACT albums "El camino de los vientos" (2020) and "Voices" (2023).

Camille Saglio, likewise, is a traveller between different worlds. The band Sôdi with flute and percussion, which he founded in Toulouse in 2003, explored world music and forged connections with the music of West Africa and the Orient. Camille became part of the Manafina project, learned to play guitar, n'goni and oud and also to express himself in various languages from Bambara and Arabic to Turkish. He wrote short stories and stage plays, produced his own shows such as "Dis-leur que j'ai vécu" (tell them I’ve lived - 2010) and worked with actors and dancers from Vincent Loiseau to Didier Bardoux and Hervé Maigret.

He now sings in an imaginary language, which he creates live, evolving in his own universe. Able to carry the listener up and away into high counter-tenor register, he improvises with a voice trumpet sound, but he can also spring surprises too, by switching to a song in English, Bambara, French or Spanish. Camille Saglio has a style which is uniquely his.

In this way, both brothers developed independently into poets of their genre. And finally, after years of separate experiences, they have now converged musically. "Al Alba" is a programme of songs which are as gentle as they are powerful. Matthieu Saglio uses his cello as a source of inspiration and opens up all kinds of spaces for his brother's voice. Sometimes he changes role and becomes a singer himself with bowed lines. The closeness to his brother's feelings is palpable in Camille’s singing. There is an interweaving of energy lines, which is also accommodated by the repertoire. Camille Saglio sings Arabic poetry ("Tariq") as well as a well-known political song ("Strange Fruit"), an independent classic by Noir Désir ("Le vent nous portera" – the wind will carry us), Spanish or free melodic lines and ornaments. For one piece, third brother Gabriel Saglio also joins in on bass clarinet. Recorded on an island in the River Loire, this album takes inspiration from the spirit of the river, its flow and the ever-fleeting, ever-changing nature of its moods and emotions.

‘Al Alba’ is music in a state of flux, the sound of brothers whose cultural perspectives have real breadth. It is music from deep within. Totally personal, yet at the same time completely universal.