Day 9, 4.30 in the morning. We arrive at the Limpopo river just before the cicadas’ chorus. The birds are already here. A bridge is crossing the river, and I set the mics just in the middle, facing North. Some baboons are arguing in the distance. On the other side lies Botswana, that we were exploring a few days ago. It’s the ninth day in this incredible place. It’s also approximately the number of hours I’ve slept since the beginning of the residency. I go back to the truck for a nap in the rising dawn, surrounded by birds and cicadas.
The Limpopo, Mmabolela, South Africa.
This recording have been made during the first Sonic Mmabolela, a residency / workshop organized by Francisco Lopez and James Webb in Mmabolela, South Africa. Many thanks to them.
Night and day under and near a baobab in the South African bush, Limpopo state, Mmabolela reserve.
1 – Night in the open land Mmabolela reserve, around 1AM. The mics are inside a small group of bushes, in the open land behind the baobab.
2 – Dawn at the water hole A water hole lies at a hundred meters from the baobab. It’s 5AM and a small group of deers comes to vent their thirst. As the sun appears above the horizon, swarm of birds are flying by. Some make a stop to drink, while cicadas wake up. I grab the mics at 7AM, the sun is already high and the temperature is increasing.
3 – The baobab A typical hot and sunny november afternoon under the baobab of Tuli. Groups of birds are playing around the mics, and a probable coqui francolin comes to feed just in front of them. The cicadas chorus resonates and turns all around, before a solitary bird takes over.
A girafe hanging in Mmabolela, Limpopo, South Africa.
These recordings have been made during the first Sonic Mmabolela, a residency / workshop organized by Francisco Lopez and James Webb. Many thanks to them. Recorded with a pair of Sennheiser MKH8040 on a Sonosax Minir.
Recorded in an open area in the South African bush, Limpopo state, Mmabolela reserve.
The landscape at midnight, at the beginning of summer while the nights are still fresh. It has been raining for the past three days and the temperature have dropped. The place is very open. Dead trees with fantastic forms populate the land. The microphones are under one of these.
Mmabolela, Limpopo, South Africa.
This recording was made during the first Sonic Mmabolela, a residency / workshop organized by Francisco Lopez and James Webb. Many thanks to them.
Recorded with a pair of Sennheiser MKH8040 on a Sonosax Minir.
Tracks mainly composed when I was at the Conservatoire de Chalon-sur-Saône, in the electroacoustic class of Jean-Marc Weber. Eanna, in 2010, marks the beginning of my exploration of the sedative quality of drone music. Le pèlerin face à l’arbre sec, 2013, is also featured in this album. This was the first time I worked with a musician and wrote a score with staves and notes. I would love to expand Vögel, Käfer und Johann Jacob Froberger mit ein Mikrophon but I have somehow lost the session and all the recordings it is based on.
Old tracks from when I started to compose. Having no musical formation at that time, I experimented and improvised with digital no-input and auto-oscillating filters. Bronzonium is based on heavily processed recordings of a singing bowl. Kosmiche Muzak is also based on the same recordings of the same singing bowl, plus other things that I don’t remember. I remind that it was only a few tracks composed of big stackings of midi notes to trigger samples at different speeds / pitches. All the tracks were done inside Ableton Live and Logic Pro, with the onboard effects. All the original sessions are now lost.
Mage mythique de la Perse antique, Ostanès aurait été parmi les premiers à transmettre les savoirs magiques orientaux aux Grecs. Son rapport à la nature en fait aussi un des pères antiques de l’alchimie. Prenant pour stimulant principal ce rapport aux mystères, la pièce prend pour base le SATOR AREPO, carré magique de l’antiquité romaine, auquel viennent se mêler des mots indo-européens et perses tirés de la tradition zoroastrienne, Ostanès étant dit de la lignée de Zoroastre. Ces mots tournent majoritairement autour du feu, dans sa dimension sacrée et alchimique du feu visible et invisible. Leur signification littérale est toutefois rapidement mise de côté, la musique se chargeant seule de l’exposition et du dévoilement des paroles obliques de l’oracle, qui ne peuvent passer à travers le langage.
Ab uno, ad unum.
Lamassu in the Zoroastrian Fire Temple of Mumbai.
Arsys Bourgogne, conducted by Mihály Zeke. La Cité de la Voix, Vézelay. Recording, mixing: Jean-Baptiste Masson.
Commissioned by Why Note. special thanks to Nicolas Thirion and Mihály Zeke.
2018, for radio waves, electric guitar and feedback. This is the first release of Colonne Drone.
For the last concert of my two-year collaboration with Why Note, I invited Nicolas Canot to join me on stage. I was working on radio waves and feedback and I saw his work on mathematical formulas. Colonne Drone was born. What should have been a traditional concert became an audio visual experience, greatly enhanced by the presence of Julien Guillamat and his Klang acousmonium.
Église Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, Marseille.
Nicolas Canot : video, 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. Sound projection: Julien Guillamat. La Vapeur, Dijon, 10 November 2018. Recording, mixing: Jean-Baptiste Masson.
Commissioned by Why Note. special thanks to Nicolas Canot, Nicolas Thirion, Julien Guillamat, La Vapeur.
2018, for objects, effects, feedback, modular synthesizer and percussions.
In 2017 I was working with the Institute of Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music in Gent, to think about what could be a music that would trigger a sedative effect. The fact that breathing and heart rate are influenced by music was the starting point. These rhythms slow down during sleepiness process. The idea was then to compose a music that would slow down its pace very progressively, driving bodily rhythms with it. The second point was to think about the very fact of listening to music: why do I listen and why do I continue to listen? In relation with the sedative effect wanted, we had to deal with the interest of the proposed music: to have something sufficiently arousing to catch listeners’ attention, but not completely interesting to prevent a total arousing that would discard the sedative effect. We thus had to maintain music in the border between interest and neutrality while avoiding boredom. Neutrality would allow listeners to let their thoughts ramble while unconsciously being tuned to the global slowing down of the music (which is also a rarefaction of the number of events). The third point was to pair all this with a progressive diminution of music volume. That will focus the listening, which gives space, thanks to music’s neutrality, to the wandering thoughts of the listeners. The combination of these three points triggers a sedative effect. At the basis of the proposition is also of course a willing of the listener to accept the music without any hidden agenda.
In 2018, during my collaboration with Why Note, all this was processed in a one hour composition for three musicians. At all the following concerts, people snored after 15′ to 40′, so there’s probably something at work here.
Raphus cucullatus, Museum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris
La Générale d’Expérimentation – Nicolas Thirion: pedals, no-input mixing board, guitar, hurdy gurdy, Teenage Engineering OP-1; Baptiste Chatel: modular synth, Organelle; Benoît Kilian : percussions. Cité de la Voix, Vézelay, 15 January 2018. Recording, mixing: Romain Robert.
special thanks to Leon van Noorden and Luc Nijs for the inspiring talks during my time at IPEM special thanks to Nicolas Thirion and the Générale d’Expérimentation
dodo en do (dièse) was commissioned by Why Note and coproduced by Césaré CNCM.
