Remembering Carla Diratz

I got news of the sad passing of Carla Diratz a couple of days ago. I know Carla had been in hospital for some time with a serious illness, and so whilst this news wasn’t entirely a surprise, it was still a shock.

Carla was an unique individual. A glimpse into her extraordinary but under-recognised musical career is in a piece I wrote for Facelift back in 2024, which I point you towards. What follows is a more personal reminiscence of a meeting earlier that summer:

I’m not entirely sure when I first became aware of Carla, but I think it was through social media up to a decade ago, where she had become a prolific poster on Canterbury scene Facebook groups, particularly in relation to Soft Machine. It became clear she was an expert devotee of their earlier work.

But simultaneously, I became aware that she had a musical pedigree of her own: we conversed online regularly, and then I started to receive copies of projects she was recording: Precis Aimant (with Pascal Vaucel), ‘The Electric Suite’ with Corentin Coupe, her two Archers of Sorrow albums on Discus Music, and, best of all, the Diratz album, that trio of unique talents with Dave Newhouse and Bret Hart, which, for me, remains her crowning glory.

In the summer of 2024, after retiring from teaching but simultaneously in the final throes of PhD research, I’d contacted a number of international musicians to see if they would be willing to contribute to a series of interviews under the broad umbrella of ‘Canterbury 2.0’. Carla was on my list, not because her music was necessarily Canterburyesque, but simply because I wanted an excuse to interview her, as well as wanting to tap into her unique slant on fandom of the genre.

I’d planned a summer family road trip to France, booking a number of places to stay during our month’s adventure, starting with a 4 day stay near Montfrin, situated near a number of Roman ruins in Southern France, notably the Pont du Gard, which I remembered fondly from childhood holidays. Completely coincidentally, I discovered that where we were staying was a few miles from Carla’s home in Uzes. What better excuse to visit her in person!

And so Carla became the one and only Canterbury 2.0 interview to take place face to face, albeit that it was a thousand miles from home. We arranged to meet in Uzes town square, all eat dinner together then find a suitable spot for an interview.

I’d been slightly nervous about our meetup. Carla was such a huge character: her voice uncompromising, her online persona pragmatic, succinct and not afraid to express an opinion – I got the impression she might not suffer fools gladly. How would we navigate through an interview with family present? Would there be any language barriers? Would we find somewhere quiet to talk?

Fears were swiftly allayed. Even with my notorious face-blindness, I spotted Carla immediately – she was seated waiting for us at the outdoor restaurant in the square. Her personality belied her physical appearance – Carla was a much slighter figure than I’d anticipated. She was warm, engaging, welcoming to our children, with impeccable English (she told us during dinner that she had a side hustle teaching English, which made total sense given her fluency), and probably a little nervous herself. The gravelly voice was unmistakable, the strong Parisian accent also. There had been some incident en route which meant she’d fallen and landed badly on her wrist. It had clearly shaken her, and conversations were punctuated by exclamations of pain which took us off at tangents. We ordered moules and our dinner together was somewhat overtaken by an infestation of wasps which homed in on our food. Over dinner we talked a little about our trip, and Carla’s desire to return to Nice, if and when financial circumstances allowed (unfortunately they never did). When we mentioned about our own potential visit to Nimes to see the amphitheatre, her lip curled a little: she associated the place with bull-fighting, which, as those familiar with her Facebook postings will know, was something she reviled. We got an overview of life as Carla more generally. It helped shape the revelations about her own musical history later on.

Eventually we moved on to a café nearby and found a quiet spot outdoors under an arch. The kids went off and got some ice cream, the tape recorder found a home on the table in front of us and we talked and talke. Carla had made it clear prior to meeting that she didn’t regard herself as part of the Canterbury scene, which was acknowledged and accepted. But what a story… from her own cosmopolitan upbringing; her introduction to the Soft Machine (my favourite quote from the entire interview is of her hearing ‘Third’ for the first time…

“the first time (I heard ‘Third’) it changed my life, it was a night in Germany in an apartment and I hear something coming from the room next door to the kitchen, and I’m getting up and I’m going and I just can’t leave the place and I’m just like: there is everything, there is absolutely everything in there, like a music that talks to the mind, definitely, the body, definitely and the soul or something, and I just LOVE it…”

… plus her accidental introduction to singing; a lesser-known career that seemed to span elements of both jazz and the new wave; and an autumn renaissance in the 2000s which belatedly saw a relatively prolific discography emerge.

We chatted for the best part of a couple of hours. As her story unfolded, it became clear that we were just scratching the surface. There were unexpected vignettes, insights into a varied and interesting personal story, and news that Carla was writing her own autobiography which would fill in many of those gaps. How far she got with this perhaps I will never know.

Later on, on our way back to the car, she took us to her ground floor flat down a picturesque backstreet, and invited us in for a brief look around: there was evidence everywhere of her love of music. Her living space was small, cultured, considered, but brimming full of individual character. Much like Carla herself…