Brocante sonore

On stage, a higgledy-piggledy tangle of scrap-iron and pipework, toolboxes and tin-cans*.

This is where nine labouring musicians or even musically-minded blue-collar workers turn out in their overalls and get their noses down to the grindstone, pounding out their crazy music to the rhythmical backdrop of a ticking clock.

Zic zazou work in a very different area of music, exploring the potential as instruments of items such as spray hoses, drills and bottles of vin rouge.

Whistles, firebox cleaning tools, punches, nothing escapes the collective creative imagination of Ziczazou as mundane objects of a railway engineman's everyday working life find new and highly unusual applications, a double-headed train powered by boldness and a mild degree of insanity, delivering music that, far from grating on listeners' ears, enchants them. Through ritornelli, wonderfully gentle melodies and tones that are very much of the here-and-now, Ziczazou's journey teases beauty out of the mundane and creates a sense of the exotic, flowing down over the audience in the notes of a superb musical poem.

Coasting along through a landscape made up of scenes and music that truly swing, the production creates a carefree atmosphere and a sense of delight that linger on long after the concert has ended. Having been brought to life, this dream is beautifully swathed in the light and sound of a world in which each door opens to reveal new wonders.

"Zic Zazou give a virtuoso performance both poetical and droll in their wacky show Brocante sonore. A show that pleases everyone, and brings out the worker hiding in each of us..."

Libération – National Daily

"Sparks fly, literally, in a finale that’s equal parts Spike Jones, Heath Robinson and Bastille Day".

The Herald *****

"It’s amazing what people can do with a couple of boards full of nails and two violin bows or a length of plumbing and half a dozen thumbs, or four pots and a snooker ball.On a stage that resembles a cross between a scrap metal yard and the biggest Meccano set you ever saw, French company Zic Zazou create something that’s magic, fun and genuinely surprising". Rob Adams

"By accident or design, these men are somehow blue-collar socialist folk songwriters of the industrial age".

The Scotsman ****

"This is one of those pleasing performance pieces that turn up by the very small handful every August in Edinburgh. Possibly of initial interest only to the few who are intrigued by the high concept, they prove to be the kind of shows that any audience will marvel readily at, like, for example, past spectaculars such as Stomp or Fuerzabruta. Brocante Sonore: The Mechanicians deserves success simply thanks to its sheer ambition and the flawlessness of its execution". David Pollock

"Extraordinary, exhilarating, exhaustive: a frenzy of free-wheeling invention".

Three weeks *****

" Within the set's factory floor confines (like a re-realisation of Terry Gilliam's 'Brazil' by Jean Pierre Jeunet), maestros play boxes with hammers, nails with bows, pipes, tubes and chair legs with hefty gusts of breath; they blow into glowing conches, ring buzzers, clatteringly pour beads down metal chutes and, occasionally, deign to play conventional instruments. The result stupefies for, improbably, it is beautiful". J Kerridge - Phipps

Zic zazou : Michel Berte - Patrice Boinet - Pierre Denis - Alain Graine - Bruno Hic - Jean-François Hoël - Hervé Mabille - Frédéric Obry - François Trouillet - Director : Jean-Marie Maddeddu - Scenography : Bertrand Siffritt et Yves Guyard - Music : Jean-François Hoël - Hervé Mabille - Pierre Denis - Frédéric Obry - Musical objects Maker : Alain Graine - Sound designer : Jean-Luc Malle - Light designer : Gilles Robert - Photos : Michel Gombart - Laurent Rousselin - Grégory Brandel

* The Ziczazou D-I-Y music kit : 12mm pvc piping, saucepans, grinding machines, sanding machine, guitar, 14 mm pvc piping, wooden box, plastic barrel, Bordeaux bottles, trumpet, 7mm steel tubing, 10mm wrench, trombone, bricks, bass clarinet, plastic bottles, drilling machine, alto saxophone, metal saw, 20 mm pvc piping, melodica, 12mm wrench, jam tins, files for metal saws, mallet, 16mm wrench, bass guitar, plastic piping, hammers, accordeon, toy bass, nail violin, toy piano, electric bells, sampler, brick xylophone, Burgundy bottles, cardboard barrel, hosepipe, suitcase, coffee-grinders, shallameis, ping-pong bats, beer cans, shells, whistling household gloves, baritone sax, toy balloon, frying pan, hole-punch, tuba, phonograph horn, chickpeas, championship trophies, screwdrivers, hand-bells, trumpet violin, grater...