The label Mexican Summer (a parent label of Anthology Recordings), lately known for releasing the latest album by Allah-Las, had the very good idea of reissueing three of Catherine Ribeiro's albums (with the band Alpes), the excellent "N°2", "Ame Debout" and "Paix", originally released in 1970, 1971 and 1972, which ensured the consistency in sound, message and overall quality.
The awesome idea would have been to reissue the first album of Catherine Ribeiro + 2Bis, as well as "Le Rat Débile et L'Homme des Champs" with Alpes, but it is a good start and I guess you need to start and stop somewhere. Plus, an anthology was released in 2015 by Mercury/Universal, but only on CD (the major also issued the album "Paix" on vinyl in 2017, within the Back to Black series, but I can't explain why they printed only this one...).
At least it gives the most interesting introduction to nowadays crowds (... well, amateurs let's say) who don't have an easy access to original pressings.
This effort by the Brooklyn label (no, it's not a Mexican label) sheds some well-deserved light on Catherine Ribeiro, her old mates and their impressive catalog of free-minded music and words. Although she explicitly rejects all comparisons with Nico and Brigitte Fontaine, you have to admit that they all share a certain spirit of this era.
Lately, a lot of articles and interviews have surfaced, which deserve a read. Interestingly enough, Catherine Ribeiro, who now resides in the middle of a German forest, sometimes posts links on Facebook.
Noisey had the privilege of a phonecall with the hippie psychedelic poetess, which they transcripted, in French. Gonzaï, also in French, published in 2015 a lenghty article on Catherine's (and her bands') career. For the English-speaking souls around here, thank Julian Coppe for his article on the diva's album "Paix"... and the Guardian.
My best advice of the day : go listen.
