Petite Noir Made the Night Beautiful at Rickshaw Stop

Petite Noir by Corey Bell - Best New Bands

San Fransisco – “Life is beautiful.” This is a sentiment that floods the minds and hearts of bright-eyed optimists all over the world. Everything is relative, obviously, so there isn’t really any objective way to assess the quality of consciousness and existence. There are many who would probably argue that life is, in fact, far from beautiful: the disenfranchised, the oppressed, the consistently overlooked… there are large sects of people in the world who suffer daily due to the unfortunate circumstances that govern their everyday experiences. And how can life be defined in terms of beauty, or value, or any sort of qualitative reasoning when we as humans – the few beings on this planet that actually take the time to question the meaning behind why we are “here” – have no basis of comparison? Still, it seems that we get off on trying to delineate our significance, and even those who face constant struggle often find those glimmering facets of life that keep them from resorting to committing an act that most view as unthinkable by ending their own lives. But nothing is perfect, everything is subjective, and there really is no way to tell if life is actually beautiful or if we are in fact just molecules thrust together by random chaos, instinctually driven to assume that being alive is better than the alternative, by way of masking our evolutionary needs with the knowledge that we are superior to every other animal on Earth. Apparently, we are the only ones with the capacity to attempt to understand the reason for our collective existence, and viewing it as something beautiful makes the whole picture seem a lot more comforting, as if ultimately we will benefit from being happy.

I could go on and on about the metaphysical nature of the human mind and how we perceive the act of living, but this isn’t a philosophy lecture; it’s a concert review. Life Is Beautiful happens to be the title of the debut LP by South African singer/composer/multi-instrumentalist Yannick Ilunga –known better by his moniker, Petite Noir (actually, the full album title is La Vie Est Belle / Life Is Beautiful, ‘la vie est belle’ being the French translation of ‘life is beautiful’) – which was released last autumn. Life Is Beautiful came several months following Petite Noir’s initial release, January 2015’s The King of Anxiety EP, which featured five new songs that blew critics and fans alike completely out of the water with soaring originality and hungry intention. With both albums, Ilunga fortifies his compositions with incendiary beats and velveteen vocal structures that blanket the listener in warm baths of polyrhythmic bliss, and his live show at San Francisco’s cozy Rickshaw Stop venue this past Wednesday was no different; a perfect remedy to the chilly nights that have dominated our region’s climate these past few weeks.

Before Petite Noir took to the stage, the initially humble – but steadily growing – crowd was treated to an absolutely stunning opening set from local music collective The Seshen, featuring multiple vocalists and jubilant percussion, combining elements of electro pop, funk, and soul (their debut self-titled LP was released in 2012 and their Unravel EP came out in 2014; they are hopefully releasing a sophomore LP soon). It was the perfect backdrop for Petite Noir’s headlining set, as Ilunga’s hybrid of new-wave and traditional South African sound (appropriately dubbed as “noir-wave”) projects the same sort of celebratory madness and diversity as The Seshen’s material. A brief recess was taken between the two sets – as it generally goes with any show – but as Petite Noir’s set grew nearer, the anticipation was virtually tangible. The crowd was noticeably excited to see Ilunga and his band mates perform, and when he finally graced the small stage at Rickshaw, he was met with thunderous enthusiasm.

As a new artist, Petite Noir’s current catalog is not terribly expansive – limited to the aforementioned EP and LP released last year – but that was unimportant. Petite Noir’s set, which clocked in at almost exactly an hour, was bursting with promise. Ilunga is a natural as a live performer, playing to the crowd with an infectious zeal that he also shared with his touring band. In the time he was given, Ilunga was able to play a good chunk of Life Is Beautiful, as well as a few tracks from his debut EP, a clear highlight from the latter being the spacey, echoed “Shadows,” which, whether intentional or not, sounds like a veritable love letter to TV on the Radio’s style of songwriting, crammed with searing falsetto and tumbling syncopated beats. The majority of the set, however, was devoted to showcasing the more recent material that can be found on his full-length LP, which kicks off with the suitably titled “Intro Noirwave,” its hammering drums and ghostly lyricless vocals serving as a perfect set opener as well. From there Ilunga took us on a journey through tracks lifted from his staggeringly diverse LP, including the lengthy “Seventeen (Stay)” — which kind of sounds like Robert Smith on safari, in the best way possible – as well as the horn-heavy “Best,” “Freedom,” and the slippery bassline of “MDR,” a relatively simple-sounding but incredibly sweet song about genuine, heartfelt devotion. The title track was also performed, which features Belgian-Congolese rapper Baloji providing most of the vocals. The song that garnered the most fervor from the audience was the single “Chess,” which is the only track that appears on both The King of Anxiety EP and Life Is Beautiful, making it one of the most well known Petite Noir tracks, a trend made evident by the crowd’s eagerness to sing along with Ilunga as he belted the lyrics. During much of the set, photographs of the people of his native continent of Africa were projected onto a screen behind the band, adorned in traditional bright-colored clothing that vibrantly spoke to Ilunga’s pride in his heritage.

To me, music is one of the main reasons I can attribute beauty to the world. The way that it touches people, the way that it makes people move their bodies, the way that it brings people together… it’s really quite remarkable. I’ve read more theories on why music affects us so viscerally than I care to admit, and they all make sense in their own ways; a general consensus on the matter has yet to be reached. Maybe there is some scientific explanation relating to our origins of language or something to do with our reptilian brain, but on the other hand, maybe we’re not supposed to understand it. Maybe it’s part of that random chaos that somehow holds our universe together, and so it just is. There is one thing I can say for sure, and that is this: music has definitely improved my life, and I can’t imagine a world without it. We can critique it, analyze it, and debate our own personal tastes until the end of time, but that won’t change the fact that music is definitely one of the most beautiful aspects of life.

Yes, Petite Noir’s album is called Life is Beautiful, and that’s not a terribly new or groundbreaking outlook. Through his music, Yannick Ilunga speaks not only of beauty, but of pain and difficulty too. But that’s part of life, and he has molded those things into splendor by making them into music. It doesn’t stop there. As a musician – and especially as a performer – he has created victory, and he’s chosen to celebrate with us, and what could be more beautiful than that?

Petite Noir is just wrapping up a tour but is expected at France’s Festival Les Escales at the end of July (which may lead to more tour dates this summer). His two releases are now available via Domino Records. For more information and to stay up to date on everything Petite Noir, follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Photo by Corey Bell for Best New Bands

Corey Bell

Corey Bell

Corey Bell is no stranger to music.Having spent the better part of the past decade at concerts and music festivals around the globe, he finds he is most at home in the company of live music.Originally a native of New England, he has since taken residence in New York and New Orleans, and now resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.He achieved his Bachelor of Arts from Goddard College in Vermont via an undergraduate study entitled “Sonic Highways: Musical Immersion on the Roads of America," in which he explores the interactions between music, natural environment, and emotion while travelling along the scenic byways and highways of the United States.His graduate thesis, “Eighty Thousand’s Company,” features essays regarding the historical and socio-economic facets of contemporary festival culture intertwined with personal narrative stories of his experiences thereof.He is the former editor of Art Nouveau Magazine and holds a Master of Fine Arts in Writing from California College of the Arts.
Corey Bell