Category: Music

Rémanence

2024

Rémanence is based on found materials, recorded by amateur sound hobbyists in France and Germany between the 1960s and the 1990s. The tapes and cassettes were collected in the two countries in Summer 2023, while on trip to investigate the sonic practices of French and German sound hunters. People were interviewed, and sonic material gathered. Sound hunters were amateurs interested in sound, who, from the 1950s, started to produce radio programmes, to organise national and international contests, to edit magazines, to gather themselves in tape recording clubs. This piece documents and poeticises their activities, that ranged from family recordings, to musique concrète, to the recording of bird songs, to the soundtracks of amateur films, to music, interviews and audio documentaries. Short electroacoustic compositions by me link or sometimes frame sound hunters’ recordings.

The tapes and cassettes of this piece were collected thanks to a funding from the Deutsch-Französischer Bürgerfonds. Many thanks to them.

Rémanence was broadcast in the Netherlands at and from the Institute of Sonology in Den Haag, and in Germany (Radio Cashmere) on the 26th of May, thanks to On Air On Site. It was also broadcast in France in June on Tikka Radio.

Milieux 1

2022

Milieux is interested in the everyday, the non-event, the ordinary. Time is given to train our attention, to raise our awareness to what lies around, to what we are part of, to what we bath in. Milieux is a proposal to contemplate the ordinary, the non-event that triggers awe.

The series is a wait, an active stillness. Its slow temporality forces one to look at their own reflection.The wait, the non-action, give time to listening. It is a mirror, a place and time for reflexivity. The calmness and the stillness do not over or constantly stimulate the attention. They offer a time to contemplate the non-event. One should explore the left-aside, the ordinary, where nothing in particular is happening. The non-action of Milieux is not a wait for things to come but an active posture where one is related to its surrounding and to oneself.

A time to rest, at the limit of boredom. Some pieces of Milieux are an exploration of the grey-zone between interest and dullness, between being awake and asleep. The pieces offer a time and space where the listener’s mind can run free, discretely carried by the sounds, which foster dream and imagination. A dream emerging from the non-event, because of the non-event. The non-event and non-action as the infinite source of possibilities. Milieux intends to give time to listening, which is also a time to think, to imagine, to create.

Decameron-19

2020

Un projet de Sylvain Creuzevault auquel nous avons eu le plaisir de participer (merci Nicolas Jacquot), pour accompagner le premier confinement Covid-19 :


“C’est le printemps ! Maintenant qu’un milliard d’individus est tenu de rester chez lui, je me suis dit qu’il serait simple et vrai de faire enregistrer chaque nouvelle par des actrices et des acteurs de plusieurs pays, en plusieurs langues. J’ai écrit aux acteurs que je connais en France, mais également en Autriche, en Allemagne, en Italie, en Suisse, au Royaume-Uni (eux, je sais pas pourquoi ils n’ont pas répondu), une connaissance avait même une amie islandaise, j’invite encore. Ils m’ont répondu. Qu’ils soient ici remerciés. Ils sont 100, ils pourraient être 1000. D’ici à la fête de la Saint-Jean, nous aurons écouté ensemble Le Décaméron de Boccace, recueil de cent nouvelles, écrit entre 1349 et 1353, après la pandémie de peste noire de 1348. Alors là, les amis, vraiment, c’est à deux pas, presque 700 ans. Sept femmes et trois hommes sont retirés à quelques kilomètres de Florence, confinés. Et que font-ils ? Ils se racontent des histoires.

Nous avons demandé à des acteurs d’enregistrer depuis chez eux les nouvelles du Décaméron de Boccace. Ils ont répondu. Une série de miniatures sonores, de petites histoires du XIVe siècle. À partir du mardi 24 mars 2020, tous les jours à 8h, lundimatin publiera une nouvelle, lue par des acteurs français, mais aussi allemands, autrichiens, italiens, et autres. Cent nouvelles, une par jour, au petit déj pour les abdos et les zigos.”


L’ensemble des nouvelles mises en musique : lundi.am/decameron-19

The Art of Drone Warfare

2019, for radiowaves and electronic.

This piece was composed for the Art of Drone Warfare popup exhibition in the Millenium Gallery, Sheffield.

Drones are the first step to an externalisation of war: acquisition of data and engagement are made from a distance, through sensors. Intelligence becomes primordial to contextualise the data received and surveillance – also made from a distance through sensors – arise as a central and constant need. A probably extreme reading of this could be to establish a parallel with predictive maintenance: a constant remote surveillance to establish when, where and how take action.

An underlying ominous presence was then the main idea behind the music. Distant voices, stolen communications, non-directional melodies, juxtaposition of elements: if it’s enough to build something, is it enough to build a meaning?

Commissioned by the University of Sheffield.
special thanks to Beryl Pong

Colonne Dijon

2018

Colonne Dijon is born from the my piece The Irrepassable Gate.
I was therefore following the guidelines of my score, Nicolas was improvising while following his own score for the video.
We had the chance to have our music projected by the expert hands and ears of Julien Guillamat, on his very-own Klang acousmonium.

Église Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, Marseille.

Nicolas Canot : Zvex Fuzz Factory, Electro-Harmonix Canyon, Electro-Harmonix Pitch Fork.
Jean-Baptiste Masson : Vermona Retroverb Lancet, Mr Black Supermoon Chrome, Mooer Tender Octaver Pro, Mooer Hustle Drive, radio receiver, VLF receiver, BC Rich Mockingbird, Mackie VLZ1604.

Recorded and mixed by Jean-Baptiste Masson.
La Vapeur, November 10, 2018.

special thanks to Nicolas Thirion, Julien Guillamat and La Vapeur

Colonne LM

2018

Live impro at Le Lieu minuscule, Reims, September 27.
special thanks to Aurore Dudevant and Philippe Zulaica.

Église Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, Marseille.

Nicolas Canot : Waldorf 2-Pole, Zvex Fuzz Factory, Electro-Harmonix Canyon, Electro-Harmonix Pitch-Fork, Max MSP, Soundcraft Signature 12 MTK.
Jean-Baptiste Masson : Vermona Retroverb Lancet, Mr Black Supermoon Chrome, Mooer Tender Octaver Pro, Mooer Hustle Drive, BC Rich Mockingbird, radio receiver, VLF receiver, field-recording, Mackie VLZ1604.

Geranium Drone

2019

Live improvisation in Levallois-Perret, 24 April 2019.

During Winter, ancient Scarborians used to swim in the sea. They welcomed the North Sea by getting naked and for hours they jumped in the waves, floatting and playing around. Their black shiny heads protruded from the foam and they slowly transformed into seals.

Jack, 2017.

Lina Zikra: Novation Mininova
Jean-Baptiste Masson: digital organ, delay and fuzz

Cows and Horses in a Nuclear Field

2018

Live improvisation recorded at Le lieu minuscule, Reims, France, 12 September 2018.
Video shot and edited by Jah Poney.
All images were shot around Vauville, Normandy, a very lovely village bursting with birds and insects (and giant pumpkins), albeit surrounded by the EPR nuclear reactor of Flamanville and the nuclear fuel reprocessing plant of La Hague.

Just as the end of the musical phrase gives birth to a new one, the end of our world introduces a new one.

So sein nun, Seele, deine
Und traue dem alleine,
Der Dich erschaffen hat;
Es gehe, wie es gehe,
Dein Vater in der Höhe
Weiß allen Sachen Rat.

Cheval, Vauville, 2018.

Lina Zikra: Novation Mininova, Teenage Engineering OP-1.
Jean-Baptiste Masson: Vermona Retroverb Lancet, Mr Black Supermoon Chrome, Mooer Hustle Drive, Mooer Tender Octaver Pro, Mackie VLZ1604, portable radio receiver, field-recordings.
Antoine Lombart: EVP.

Drifting in Purple Haze With Ganesh

2018
The first concert of Jah Poney, when the band didn’t even had a name. We were playing with Antoine Lombart, alto saxophone, many thanks to him for the invitation.

Live improvisation at Les Tanneries, Centre d’Art Contemporain, Amilly, 24 March 2018.
This is only an extract of the five hours impro that we did that day.

Lina Zikra : Teenage Engineering OP-1
Antoine Lombart : alto saxphone
Jean-Baptiste Masson : Vermona Retroverb Lancet
Reverb : Mr Black Supermoon Chrome