2023
Riga, Avril 2011.
Sennheiser MKH8040, Sonosax Minir82.
Category: Music
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
A Dawn Chorus in Lorraine
2019
2014, May. I spend some days at my grand-father place in Boucq, Lorraine. All is very calm, the surroundings are bursting with insects, frogs, birds and animals. I decide to set up the mics very early, to capture the night and the rising sun. The forest is just by the house, the night is very silent, and the dawn chorus suddenly emerges.
Recorded with a pair of Sennheiser MKH8040 on a Sonosax Minir.