Winter Family is a weird wave music and documentary theater duo
founded by Ruth Rosenthal & Xavier Klaine.
They met in Jaffa in 2004 and currently live mostly in Paris & a little in Detroit.
Ruth Rosenthal is born in Haïfa and grew up in Jerusalem. She is graduated from the School of Visual Theatre of Jerusalem. She worked with several projects and independant israeli theater and dance companies as a performer or light designer, was light operator in the Israeli Opera of Tel-Aviv and was cooking in several restaurants of Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv.
Xavier Klaine grew up in Maxéville in Lotharingia. He obtained a first prize of piano and chamber music in The Conservatoire Régional of Nancy and a MA of political geography studies (Sorbonne University Paris IV). He was the bass player of Alive the Roupettes and Blockheads, worked in several bars in Paris and was teaching piano and chamber music.
The music of Winter Family is described as 'doom swing', 'funeral pop' or 'weird wave'. Its dense, saturated, emotional, simple and obsessional. Ruth chants her texts, plays drums, machines and bells. Xavier plays pipe organ, piano, philicorda, harmonium, sitar & celesta. He captures also field recordings.
They published 'Winter Family', their first album, in 2007 on Sub Rosa, Brussels.
Since then they play live in clubs, theaters, churches, galleries and museums around the world and collaborate with numerous choreographers, filmmakers, musicians and artists composing soundtracks for performing arts, cinema, a train travel, art pieces and some advertisements.
As a continuation to their radio piece 'Jerusalem Syndrom' commissioned by France Culture Radio in 2009, they created the documentary theater performance 'Jerusalem Plomb Durci - An Hallucinatory Trip In An Emotional Dictatorship', awarded the Paris Impatience Festival Prize in 2011, and successfully touring around the world since then (Europe, Israel, Japan & Canada).
In 2011 they published their 2nd album 'Red Sugar' on Sub Rosa, Alt.vinyl (Newcastle), Ici d’Ailleurs (Nancy) and received the 'Villa Medicis-Outdoor' scholarship in New-York City from the French Minister of Cultural Affairs.
Winter Family lived in the neighborhoods of south Brooklyn for two years where they played concerts, moved & clean apartments, lost their gear because of Sandy Storm, bought a drum machine & moog, recorded new songs, several soundtracks and published the tape 'How Does Time' on Psychic Mule (NYC).
In NYC, Winter Family also collected sounds, images and texts to create ‘No World / FPLL’, their second theatre performance, produced by Centquatre Paris (in which they are associated artists) , Vidy Lausanne Theater and the Avignon Festival.
In 2014 they moved to South Tel-Aviv and published 'No World' a CD/book comissioned by Dis/Voir (Paris) and created 'Back To Sodom' for the 'Nuit Blanche' in the Jewish History & Art Museum of Paris.
Since 2016 their daughter Saralei Klaine performs most of the concerts with Winter Family. She plays the flute & choirs.
Their 3rd album recorded in NYC and Tel Aviv 'South From Here' was out on February 2017 on Ici d'Ailleurs & Alt.vinyl.
Winter Family moved in Paris in january 2017, touring music and theater in France and Europe, they created 'H2 Hebron' produced by Vooruit Gent, Vidy Lausanne, MC93 Bobigny, Nanterre Amandiers and more. It was premiered in Oct 2018 and is still touring.
Actually, they are touring 'Patriarchy - Living in eternal lock down', a new documentary theater show about their own family produced by MC93, TNB Rennes, Next Festival, etc.
In 2024, the full texts of their 2 last documentary theatre performances
Patriarcat, living in eternal lockdown & H2 - Hebron are published at 'Espace d'un Instant'
(preface by Hortense Archambault)
In october 2024, they published their 4th Album : On Beautiful Days, recordred at Loulou's house in Maxéville, Lotharingia and in their Kosher Cave in Marais, Paris., published on Murailles Music, Hublotone, Sub Rosa.
Currently they work on a new documentary theater shows 'Taglit, Droit du Sang - Zakarat , Droit au Retour''
about the jewish supremacism, fuel of the zionism with the performer Mayya Sanbar.
They work on their 5th album and touring with their concerts.
Since 2004 they are honored to collaborate with amazing artists, film makers, designers, musicians, dancers, technicians and curators as Damien Jalet, Paco Decinà, Philippe Quesne, Stefan Ferry, Marina Beltov, Maïder Fortuné, Philippe Petit, Yael Perlman, Roland Edzard, Blaise Harisson, Sebastien Betbeder, Rodolphe Burger, Sebastien Tondo, Anne Laurin, Etienne Foyer, Julienne Rochereau, Arthur Nauzyciel, Olivier Robert, Valeria Apicella, Sing Sing, Cheveu, Gabriel Severin, Norsola Johnson, Vanessa Bruno, Jeremie Cusenier, Chanel, Kartsen Hochapfel, Victor Gachet, Cyril Charlot, Nash Keep On, Otomo, Olivier Perola, Cyril Mordant, Arnaud Martin, Emmanuelle Klaine, Fabien Lehalle, Isabelle Chen, Patrick Klem, Florent Dalmas, Alex Drool, Adam Scheflan, Sylvain Favre, Henrike Stahl, Olivier Mirguet, Johanna Allitt, Mahmadou Gassama, Antonio Mvuani-Gaston, Jerôme Vernez, Matthieu Goeury, Vincent Baudriller, Fanny Schulman, Eric Fesneau, Hortense Archambault, Yvan Cuche, Edouard Plongeon, Adélaïde Desseauve Mulunesh, Guy-Marc Hinant, Julien Bitaudeau, Emmanuelle Ossena, Charlotte Pesle Beal, Ami Livne, Astricd de la Chapelle, Olivier Demeaux, Ben McConnell, etc
"...As moving as I find this record, it's not an easy sell. It's such a weighty thing, exerting a constant pressure that is only occasionally relieved. But as harsh and despairing as Red Sugar can be, there's also a yearning for warmth and humanity, a desire to be lifted into the light. The key to it all is in how completely Rosenthal & Klaine inhabit this music: We never wonder for a second if they are really feeling it, and that makes it easier for us to feel."
Mark Richardson, Pitchfork (noted 7.9)
"...Winter Family's songs touch on topics like war and religious zealotry....Brittle pianos or velvety harmonium create twinkles and warmth—every track feels like it could crumble, presumably because the world can." Christopher Weingarten, The Village Voice.
"...The 'mass' completes in an apotheosis, in a shout of the pipe organ and with a cry "us, the alive!" We exit the church converted into Winter Family...” Marie Lechner, Liberation.
"...Winter Family are a world in itself, a stunning world like a nature reserve and at the same time as foreign, scary and demanding as a forest in the dead of night..." Avi Pitchon, Haaretz.
"...Winter Family, the show which electrified the first evenings of the Rennes festival, with its shocking title, which is already a whole program: Patriarchy, living in eternal confinement... the political terrain has moved into the intimate sphere, but it is nonetheless explosive. And even downright flammable..."
Fabienne Darge, Le Monde