Ödland is a French band from Lyon consisting of composer-songwriter Lorenzo Papace, and sisters Alizée Bingöllü (on vocals) and Léa Bingöllü (on violin). They have self-produced two albums: Ottocento (2010) and Sankta Lucia (2011).
The band draws its inspirations from 19th century music and European folklore. Ödland has a contemporary, acoustic, and poetic sound, enriched by a visual universe of videos and photography all produced by the members of the band themselves.
History
The band Ödland was created on 13 December 2008, in Lyon under the lead of Lorenzo Papace, composer-songwriter, accompanied by the Bingöllü sisters. Alizée Bingöllü is the singer and an actress, Léa Bingöllü is the violinist. Ödland draws its inspirations from 19th century music and European folklore. Ödland has a contemporary, acoustic, and poetic sound, enriched by a visual universe that includes videos and photographs. The band has remained independent since its beginning: To date, it has self-produced four records: The Caterpillar, an EP in 2008; Zoophyte, a 45-rpm vinyl in 2010; and two albums, Ottocento and Sankta Lucia in 2010 and 2011 respectively.
Ödland went on two tours in 2010 in England and Germany with Ottocento and another tour through Germany in 2012 to support their album Sankta Lucia. A fourth band member Isabelle Royet-Journoud left the band in June 2012.
Idioms and inspirations
Ödland get their inspiration from 19th century music, like romantic music, Russian neoclassicism and ragtime. Their musical universe is extensive but hard to categorise or nail down. While Ödland project is completely acoustic in nature it praises the return to the antique objects displaced by current props of music groups in circulation. Ödland's influences are Frédéric Chopin, Béla Bartók, Franz Liszt, Erik Satie, Maurice Ravel, Georges Bizet apart from a lot of traditional music from Europe. Their video clips and photography make for a unique, self-consistent world which is portrayed in their live acts through the recopy the same sound quality as in their recording along with the props.
Wonderland theme
Lewis Carroll's influence was very strong in their first album Ottocento. The tracks like "The Caterpillar", "Drink Me", "The Queen of Hearts", "The Well", "De l'autre côté du miroir" and "Un thé chez les fous" are directly inspired by Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Videos like "The Well" and "The Queen of Hearts" pay a tribute to this imaginary universe, childish and gloomy at the same time. Most of their lyrics are in French, but they kept the Carroll songs in English.
19th-century science culture
The band frequently also focus on nineteenth-century science and invention in their songs. "De Vienne à Paris" recounts the invention of the telephone, "Halogénures d'argent" depicts photography's chemical process, "Train" describes the death of William Huskisson, the first victim of a railway accident on the Liverpool-Manchester service. During their 2010 tour, the band made a pilgrimage in homage to William Huskisson. They went to his grave in Liverpool (also his place of death), visited The Rocket, the locomotive which killed him in York, and visited his statue in London.
Biology also inspires the band. The CD Zoophyte recounts about the surprising life of the Cecidomyiidae fly and touches upon the bamboo blossoming mystery. Both of these tracks on the CD reference Stephen Jay Gould the paleontologist who wrote Ever Since Darwin. The band also creates poems and other writing from these historic scientific and technical phenomena.
L'Europe
European identity is really important in Ödland's work. Lorenzo Papace is Italian, and the Bingöllüs Turkish, and their band is based in Lyon.
Ödland means desert or fallow in German and derives from a Scandinavian tale which arouses dream and mystery according to the member of the band. Ödland is also a Swedish forest near Östersund. Once Papace inadvertently went there while travelling and since he found a mystic connection between Scandinavian folklore and the visual universe of the band. The band was formed on Saint Lucy's Day, the band's use of pointed hats, and the giant bird ritual in the video for "Les yeux de l'oiseau" being similar to Kiruna's city symbol: All of these elements link the band to Scandinavia in the band's eyes.