In complete freedom, the story of these two extraordinary instrumentalists was written over several decades. Didier Malherbe and Loy Ehrlich met in 1970. The first was part of the legendary progressive rock group Gong; the second blends into African music with the groups West African Cosmos, Touré Kunda and Youssou N’Dour. Together, on the basis of unwavering friendship and great artistic complicity, they founded Hadouk in 1995.

A first album was released in 1996, Le Bal des Oiseaux. Reissued in 2024, it resonates with Le Concile des Oiseaux, the duo’s tenth and final album published that same year. From one to the other, Hadouk harmoniously completes a cycle initiated thirty years ago.

Hadouk embodies poetry supported by a curiosity about sounds and instruments, rhythms inspired by nature and living things. A symphony combining the East, Africa and the West, traditional melodies and jazz improvisation. Lovers of words and fusions, artisans of fantasy, their philosophy is that of inner journey. The flutes, ocarinas, doudouk and soprano of Didier Malherbe combine with the keyboards, fiddles, kora and gumbri of Loy Ehrlich, producing mixed and organic music, in a dreamlike language celebrating the All-world. From ancestral chants to Gnawa trances, from Armenian scents to Malian blues, Hadouk is a tale that can be listened to thanks to the limitless imagination of these two magicians.

Didier Malherbe and Loy Ehrlich offer refined music where we find all the ingredients that made the group original and flavorful: unusual marriages of instruments and sounds, creating the possibility of a folklore of the… imaginary world .

Conceived as a mirror of their first record, the track Hadouk Song, opening with a kora / doudouk duet, is a cover of the Hadouk theme which opened the inaugural album Le Bal des Oiseaux.

In the same way, percussionist Steve Shehan, who participated in the recording of a piece in 1996, this time brings his contribution to the eponymous title Le Concile des Oiseaux.

Ten compositions for a timeless journey with the company “Air Hadouk”: zero CO2 emissions and a change of scenery guaranteed!

★ 25.10.24 Hadouk Le Concile des Oiseaux (UVM – Continuo – Believe Digital) –