French-Portuguese musician Catherine Ribeiro and her band Alpes may have released Paix in France in 1972, but it would take over four decades until it officially crossed the Atlantic to the US.
Only since 2018 have others from across the pond become acquainted with Ribeiro’s unique warbling vocals and the “freak-folk” psychedelic stylings of Alpes. Though the group released eight albums over the years, their four-track third venture Paix continues to be proclaimed their most groundbreaking and brilliant selection in their discography. Even though some light has been shed with its release a few years ago in the US, the group is still relatively cult and deserves more recognition.
But let’s start at the beginning. Before Catherine Ribeiro was a French experimental folk and avant-garde performer, she was an actress with her most notable role in the 1963 film Les Carabiniers, a Jean-Luc Godard film. When she first ventured into music, it was as a solo singer of folk music, evidenced by a surviving early recording of Bob Dylan’s “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” in French.
Over the next few years, she adapted and expanded to the pop scene, releasing singles until she became a yé-yé star. A French genre of music that originated from the radio program Salut les copains in the late ‘50s, yé-yé combined Anglo-American influences with the French traditionalist music of chanson.
Blending upbeat, catchy music with teenage life topics such as romance and rebellion, Ribeiro was just one of many of the movement that Françoise Hardy, Brigitte Bardot, and France Gall were all a part of.
Then, in 1969, Ribeiro formed a band. Joining forces with Patrice Moullet, a musician/inventor who created his own instruments, and three other musicians, the five made their first self-titled album — Catherine Ribeiro + 2 Bis.
Despite having come from a relatively conventional scene of French pop music, the album is beyond these rudimentary choices, blending pop with experimental rhythms, vocal screams, and a freer structural approach. One year later, most likely related to these strange genre choices, this band would reform with some new members and rebrand as Alpes.
Though their lineup would continue to change over the next ten years, Moullet would remain in the band and be a constant collaborator with Ribeiro. Pushing themselves further, the group mixed aspects of folk, industrial, prog, and psychedelia while utilizing other overlooked instruments to create otherworldly music.
Even now, a quarter into the 21st century, their music seems to come from an alternate dimension. Because of its wholly unique sound, the group’s work would still astound a selection of musicians if they were lucky enough to discover it. Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, The Teardrop Explodes’ Julian Cope, Weyes Blood, and Circuit des Yeux have expressed their enjoyment of the album and point to its influence.
And it’s easy to see why once you experience the album for yourself. Most likely, you’ll be sucked in from the beginning with the album artwork, as an all-black clothed Ribeiro is seated with a somber expression and a flower dangling over her shoulder, as if attending a funeral.
A long-haired, bearded man crouches behind her with an unnerving, almost imperceptible smile. Behind them are the other two bandmates, one crossing his arms with an unreadable expression, while the other is nonplussed with his hands behind his back.
The day that the picture was taken looks overcast, chilly, and creepy. A massive tree stretches in the center background, where the title of the album and band is imprinted with elongated black text. With a slate color of the tree and the strange font of the lettering, Paix ( the French word for “peace”) completes the image of a gravestone
Ribeiro + Alpes’ choice to create an album cover that symbolizes a grave site is likely intentional, as the album isn’t afraid to ponder meditations on death. Ribeiro + Alpes were all born in ‘40s France, a time of war and the country’s upheaval. For Ribeiro, death became more personal. Not only did she spend stretches of her childhood hiding in bomb shelters, presumably wishing for the end of WWII, but her brother died when she was a baby.
In 1968, she even attempted suicide after the pressures of being a yé-yé star were too much. Though this darkness pervades the entire album, it is the inspiration for the entire second side with the one 25-minute song, “Un Jour…La Mort.” Considered by many to be the focal point of the entire album, it is a powerful requiem, comprised of unique instruments and psychedelic introspection.
But before delving into this final selection, there are three other tracks worth exploring that make up side one of Paix. Three-minute track “Roc Alpin,” the opener, begins with repetitively grooving guitars as Ribeiro’s “La, la, la” vocalizations warble, rise, and fall with grace.
Ribeiro’s voice has an arresting quality that leans toward the dramatic. It’s reminiscent of chanson, the French subgenre, which utilizes emotional delivery mixed with medieval conventions. However, integrated within these callbacks to French traditional music, her vocalizations are also reminiscent of ‘60s psych rock like Jefferson Airplane as well, especially when considering songs like “Somebody to Love” off of Surrealistic Pillow.
When these singing methods are combined with grooving guitars and basslines, it definitely feels within the realm of psychedelia. But an early example of what makes it groundbreaking occurs when other medieval music elements slip their way in. Soon into “Roc Alpin,” one of bandmate Moullet’s inventions, the cosmophone — a type of stringed instrument related to a lyre — and an organ vamp a line throughout that feels like something out of a Renaissance fair. These counterpoints allow various layers of genre to blend into each other in a way where it’s hard to see where one begins and ends.
Lacking the ability to speak French will not hurt a listener’s enjoyment of Ribeiro’s singing in “Paix.” Each one of her lines seems to end abruptly, which makes the listener hang on her every word.
“Jusqu’à Ce Que La Force De T’aimer Me Manque,” another three-minute journey, continues these genre blends. A love song that roughly translates to “Until the strength to love you fails me,” Ribeiro delivers lines with aplomb, weaving a dramatic narrative so powerful and universal you don’t even have to understand French to feel moved.
The rapid strummings of an acoustic guitar create an immediacy that wraps itself around Ribeiro’s voice, and a droning organ line provides an interesting counterpoint. The all-enveloping soundscape is reminiscent of later dream pop that bands like the Cocteau Twins would capitalize on, albeit with heavier guitars.
Next, we are given the meatier title track, “Paix.” A Farfisa organ slowly drones in as one hears one of Moullet’s invented instruments, a percuphone. It’s a large motorized instrument with a steel guitar-esque sound. Hearing it here, it rings out into the void and adds to the otherworldly sound the organ first inspires.
At times, the song is reminiscent of parts of Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond,” three years before the album’s release. These developing aspects are joined by melodic notes played by the cosmophone.
Erratic hand drums echo listlessly in the background, as the piece builds until it unfurls into a full-fledged psychedelic jam. While other instruments thrum, the organ charts a solo into unknown waters with jazzy lines that are mixed with more medieval influence.
When Ribeiro finally begins singing about five minutes in, the French vocalist sings dramatically. Again, her choices hearken back to chanson, and particularly, the work of Jacques Brel, a landmark artist in the genre known for his particularly emotive delivery.
Again, lacking the ability to speak French will not hurt a listener’s enjoyment of Ribeiro’s singing in “Paix.” Each one of her lines seems to end abruptly, which makes the listener hang on her every word. When combined with the hypnotic, repetitive rhythm of the background instrumentation, the entire section is enveloping.
After Ribeiro’s vocals build to a climax, another psychedelic jam overtakes the song, giving the organ the space it needs to go on another wild odyssey. Then Ribeiro returns to deliver high-pitched wails that often match the percophone’s notes. It’s a chilling experience brought to a close by a final freakout by all instruments involved.
Last is side two’s “Un Jour…La Mort,” or in English, “One day…death.” The twenty-five-minute final track has many different portions that reflect dramatic rises and falls over its runtime, akin to a prog epic. Its intro is similar to the last song, with an organ fade-in mixed with the cosmophone.
As the song goes on, Ribeiro asks Death to stop holding her so tightly. It’s almost good-natured at first, as she jokes that she isn’t a lesbian, so she isn’t into the female Death.
However, this time, though the organ shimmers, phasing in and out, in a triumphant manner similar to the end of Pink Floyd’s “Echoes.” It’s cut off four minutes in by Ribeiro’s warbling, endless, rattling guitar strums, and occasional space-like organ. Dark and atmospheric, it’s sure to raise goosebumps on the back of your neck.
Throughout are numerous sections of grandeur, dramaticism, and darkness. A few highlights include, again, Ribeiro’s beautiful delivery against erratic guitar strumming, then later, against almost soulless percuphone grooves. Then, organs build up before they explode out of both speakers.
Screaming and swirling, it can feel, at times, like the last gasp of breath before one’s life ends. Another indelible moment occurs later when Ribeiro’s screams and wails rail against throaty crow-like caws from the rest of the group. Similar instrumentation is utilized from the beginning of the work, but here, the backings carry both an immediacy and eerie appeal that is built upon for the piece’s conclusion.
These instrumental choices make more sense if one understands French, as Ribeiro expresses a journey about symbolically meeting the spectre of Death to illustrate the events of her suicide. First, Ribeiro portrays Death almost as a female seductress who uses her charms and body to lure Ribeiro in: Usant de ses dons, de ses charmes magiques/ Elle cambrait sa croupe féline – Using her gifts, her magical charms/ She arched her feline rump.
Ribeiro soon is swayed, absorbing three tubes of sleeping pills before she succumbs to “le tourbillion de la décadence” (“a maelstrom of decadence”). The use of the word maelstrom is interesting here, as one might expect Ribeiro to succumb to restful sleep. Instead, she is whisked back to her childhood, where napalm burned their houses and fields during wartime.
As the song goes on, Ribeiro asks Death to stop holding her so tightly. It’s almost good-natured at first, as she jokes that she isn’t a lesbian, so she isn’t into the female Death. In fact, she even says that Death’s perfume is a little much: Votre parfum me donne la nausée (“Your perfume is making me nauseous”).
Around this point, she rejects Death, begging to go back to the world. She recounts all the things she still wants to do on earth, from building snowmen to knowing love. Near the end of the song, she promises Death she will birth a child if she is given life again. It seems she followed through with this promise, as she had a child named Ioana in 1971.
Overall, Catherine Ribeiro + Alpes’ Paix is completely something of its own design. Though the band would release five more albums after this, and afterward Ribeiro would have a solo career, the musicians came together on Paix for something wholly unique.
Though Ribeiro passed in August of 2024, her vocals continue to warble across all who hear them as otherworldly and ethereal.
Psychedelic, brilliant, and even sometimes frightening, it connects a nexus of French traditions and culture within its music with cutting-edge folk, psychedelia, and prog rock.
Though Ribeiro passed in August of 2024, her vocals continue to warble across all who hear them as otherworldly and ethereal. Paix’s 2018 re-release in the US, which was released as part of a box set with the group’s first two albums (N°2, Âme debout), made a small splash but never cemented itself into the mainstream. However, this is a grave error that should be rectified, because whether it be the ghostly voice of Ribeiro, the strange instrumentation, or the album’s themes, Paix is unforgettable and arresting to all who succumb.
This article was written by Bill Cooper, who writes about music, films, books, and pop culture in various internet corners like Spectrum Culture. His two greatest urges, discovering new music and writing, keep him up at night and going during the day. The extensive amount of coffee he drinks may also contribute.
You can follow Bill Cooper on Bluesky and his Substack, Bill’s Takes.
Check out more Classic Albums Revisited reviews here.
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