Ce prochain projet demeure obscure pour moi aussi, je ne connais pas tout. Mon hommage au monde des insectes.
...
This next project is obscure for me too, I really don't see the whole picture yet. Perhaps it is still what was described here recently, perhaps not. I composed a piece for which I thought the keyboards and flutes and percussion noises reminded me of ants sometimes. For the moment, it is me pushing the limit of instrumental abstraction here. So this is my tribute to the world of insects !
Funny when I looked for one cello piece I was using without any info about it (not even the title was right, I didn't have the player's name, but was much amazed by the rich textures after 10's hours of composition), and find this :
A stellar work so far where I compose a short synthesis with my hardest and most delicate sounds, as well as with my love for unusual atmosphere, for the first time for me with an African witch ritual (creating an illusion of field recording sometimes), but without forgetting also my most mathematical abstraction through sound and romantic/symphonic edge. The lo-fi recorded guitars are played by a Brazilian guitarist, a microtonal enthusiast who comes out African here and there. The piano is played by a man who repair and tune up instruments.
This is the second step in the pre-dream during which people, places and paintings that I don't remember seeing in real life or in a film or anywhere appeared in my mind. Now, I can think about it and it doesn't go away ! This is to me a comedy horror that is meant to feel unsettled, but the piece kept transforming during the process, from what I thought would sound like a slow nocturne of my kind to this version. I didn't know what to think until I listen in speakers at the end, I was once again surprised by it.
The piece includes a recomposed version of 858 (first mix) made out of a cello and live electronics by _scape : http://soundcloud.com/underscorescape/858-first-mix
A version of this piece for a project of minimal instrumentation in 2012. It will feature pieces with 3 or 4 instruments (including eventual vocals or else). Special mention to Kawol Samarkand on acoustic guitar. Here, I spread less my sound fragments than usual, staying close to his short abstract piece Bitter Soup that strikes me right away for its rich textures : http://soundcloud.com/kawol/bitter-soup
Elles disparaissent à la pensée also features Chris Vaisvil on fretless guitar that was already beautifully recorded, stereo panned too, but considerably slower and not jumpy like it is here : http://chrisvaisvil.com/
Izanami (for Alexandra Fol). First, I have to acknowledge and send thanks to the composer and musician Alexandra Fol who have made the month of September 2011 a little less gloomy for me in a year of personal disasters. This is my first professional commission after, what I would evaluate as 10 years of quality music composition.
http://alexandrafol.blog.com/
http://www.codesdacces.org/2010/03/09/alexandrafol/
This piece ends up on my album Elle avait raison Hathor (2012) under a song format with dense Laura Kilty vocal layers.
http://www.freakywaves.com/bergerrond/fr/node/395
Ma composition la moins électronique en effet sur l'auditeur. Je la crois mélodique et très douce. Également un mélange de plusieurs de mes styles lyriques dans mon chant accepté tel qu'il est (chant-parlé cartoon, en dehors de plusieurs choses avec joie). Apparaît sur l'album Un doux rêveur dans. Homme Sauvage dit. avec un mixage légèrement différent. / My least electronic sounding composition perhaps, that I believe to be melodic and really soft through many organic shifts. Also a mix of many of my lyrical styles that I was able to sing with satisfaction, accepting my natural tendencies (cartoonish sing-talk, out of many things with joy). I translated the original poem from French to English with great care so here are both versions of the poem.
Another souvenir piece because I compose this kind of music since 1997 and not since 2004 like my available songs albums make it look like. Back then, as a listener, I was into original pop and rock, little into chamber music and more progressive music. I didn't dare singing too (and now I can't do it anymore so it feels like an imaginary loop somehow). Dreamworld really surprised me in my new mixing system ! Some striking ideas I am still haunted by in 2011 and other ones I didn't visit once again. Sometimes, you forget about your own music :) Good feeling to rediscover !
http://www.allmusic.com/album/cerebral-divisions-r558425
Still love this minimal piece that has some quality classical guitars, strange shifts and details (mixing patience) from my love of acoustic sounds to pure electronic music toward the end. It really works fine still to me, after 11 years of intense composition experience. A little bit amateurish charm in the lo-fi manipulation of sound too. From the unavailable Celebral Divisions conceived in 2000.
http://www.allmusic.com/album/cerebral-divisions-r558425
Here it is for my "naturalist" composition. Musically, it's my first composition up to 19 instruments and it is a tribute to the oboe, my favorite wind instrument. Also made to be listened on a computer system with careful balance for high frequencies. Now appears on [{ }] - 2011, available here.
Être un oiseau en novembre
En novembre un oiseau être
(bandé des yeux)
Balancer ses ailes dans la perte de soi
un damné comme crier dans
de bienveillante trahison l’absence
VOLon.taire égarement en
émergeant ce trajet en V de..
En attendant le hibou-harpe...
pour échapper aux Hauts-Bois des escapades
Nombreux à me dicter le chemin ils sont
(prennent-ils forcément la bonne décision ?
Absolument suivre faut-il ?
Qui est absolument fautif ?)
Free adaptation of Temple Grandin's Squeeze machine translated in French as "machine à câlins" (Cuddle Machine). I made most of the patterns with cello sounds that reminded me of wood planks worked out together. Drone guitars heard are by Charles Barabé. Poem in French on the same subject at the end (truly can't find any place for it on the music, it stands as a poem to be read carefully unlike most of my impulsive lyrics, in comparison)...Now appears on [{ }] - 2011, available here.
From the Errol Morris tv series First Person.
This episode features the remarkable autistic college professor and expert on humane cattle slaughter techniques Temple Grandin.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8QCWeMHU6y0&feature=related