”Conversation autour d’une hypothèse”
beyond the coda
– Et les dissonances ?
– Dieu les a créées, elles aussi…"
15/05/2025
Autour d'une hypothése
”Conversation autour d’une hypothèse”
13/05/2025
Beirut Birds
Beirut Birds est une capsule sonore qui rend hommage aux récits (inter)personnels de migration, de déplacement et aux turbulences cycliques du Liban. Transformant son projet pluriannuel, l'artiste et compositrice multidisciplinaire Nour Sokhon cristallise la performance "Beirut Birds" en son premier album tant attendu. Présenté et interprété en direct, il est accompagné d'images juxtaposées de la vie urbaine de la capitale libanaise et de la migration aviaire à travers la mer Méditerranée, représentant des thèmes fortement ancrés dans la musique.
Dans son processus artistique varié, Nour Sokhon a réalisé et enregistré des entretiens avec des diasporas et des rapatriés afin de commémorer, partager, guérir et imaginer. Ces sources deviennent les éléments centraux de l'album, qui tournent en boucle, racontent et reviennent au fil du temps, Nour y répondant avec ses instruments et sa voix. En dialoguant avec les personnes interviewées, en créant des quasi-mantras, Nour rassemble ces paysages sonores profondément ancrés dans la matière en incluant des enregistrements de terrain qu'elle a recueillis entre 2018 et 2021 au Liban et lors de son installation ultérieure à Berlin.
La composition intègre des sons manipulés provenant d'objets symbolisant la migration, tels que des sonnettes de bureau, une roue de bagage, des pièces détachées automobiles et des documents administratifs. Musicalement, les chansons sont enrichies par les improvisations de Nour au piano classique, à l'électronique, aux synthétiseurs, au violon et à divers instruments de percussion. À mesure que le temps se sculpte et que les couches se brouillent, les mots deviennent des spectres, tandis qu'un orchestre entropique de percussions et de mélodies s'élève, donnant forme à un espace intermédiaire pour ceux qui sont partis et sont restés.
Beirut Birds is a sonic memory capsule honoring (inter)personal stories of migration, displacement, and the cyclical turbulent circumstances in Lebanon. Transforming her multi-year project, multidisciplinary artist and composer Nour Sokhon crystallizes the performance Beirut Birds into her long-awaited debut album. When presented and performed live, it is accompanied by juxtaposed images of the Lebanese capital’s city life and avian migration across the Mediterranean Sea, representing themes strongly woven into the music.
a paper on "a closer listen" about Nour Sokhon
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01/05/2025
Tilbury & Cardew
The famous British pianist John Tilbury was invited in 2009 for the french exhibition "The freedom of the listening" at CAC de Brétigny sur Orge in 2009 (directed at that time by Pierre Bal-Blanc). The purpose of the exhibition, curated by Dean Inkster, Lore Gablier and myself, retraced the artistic career of the English composer Cornelius Cardew who died tagically in 1981 at the age of 45.
For this occasion, John Tilbury, whose close friendship with Cardew dates from the early 1960, played different piano pieces for prepared pinao including the third of the Cardew's "February Pieces for Piano". Here is an extract of the piano recital-talk he performed. The complete performance of this lecture is archived here .
"February Pieces for Piano - N°3" by John Tilbury - 17th may 2009
more infos in the Cardew's biography by John Tilbury"a life unfinished"
more on Cornelius Cardew on "beyond the coda" here
Pictures by Steeve Beckouet - courtesy CAC Brétigny 2009
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27/04/2025
The bigger the noise
to Sir William Letts and actress Sybil Thorndike with a traditional dance.
20/04/2025
Few discoveries
With words spoken in Arabic, Armenian, and English, Mary Kouyoumdjian's "2 Suitcases" is in dedication to her parents' immigration story, as they settled in San Francisco from the Lebanese Civil War with only their 1 year old son and two suitcases. The piece was commissioned by the Los Angeles New Music Ensemble and later arranged for Eighth Blackbird.
& to listen to "Silent Cranes" with the Kronos Quartet
"Silent Cranes" is inspired by the Armenian folk song “Groung (Crane)” in which the singer calls out to the migratory bird, begging for word from their homeland, only to have the crane respond with silence and fly away. Composed in memory of the Armenian Genocide.
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In the early 2000s, Tokyo's SuperDeluxe was a meeting point for many experimental musicians, both international and Japanese. This duo sprung from a live collaboration at the venue in 2006, where Machida was experimenting with processed steel pan and Lyall was largely performing using a tabletop guitar setup with a range of electronics.
"Premeditation" is Cal Lyall : 5-string banjo
& Yoshio Machida : steelpans, gamelan, metal slit drums
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Nyokabi Kariũki, born in 1998, is a Kenyan composer and performer based between New York,
Maryland and
Nairobi. Her sonic imagination is ever-evolving, with compositions ranging from
classical contemporary to choral music, film, experimental pop; and further includes explorations into
sound art, electronics, and (East) African musical traditions.
"This record "Premeditation" was written after an extended period of illness (long COVID) in 2021, reflecting on how being sick suddenly gave an urgency to my understanding of the body I live in...To want to share a painful story is to also find curious ways to protect yourself as you do so: looking towards methali (Swahili proverbs) to nourish the lyrics; asking text-to-speech to say phrases you struggle to repeat; recording stream-of-consciousness voice notes so that you don’t have to sit long in thoughts; and to find, in sound — from field recordings, to dreamy improvisations by musical friends — a way to express visceral feelings and noisy thoughts." NK words
with
Nyokabi Kariuki - voices & clarinet
Yaz Lancaster - violin & voice
Michael Denis Ó Callaghan - trumpet
Chris O’Leary - drums
Ian Fales - double bass
...¿•\±...
16/04/2025
Island song
One of my favorite astounding trip... with the voice of Charlemagne Palestine.
*** Gotta get outta here...gotta get outta here... ***
11/04/2025
24 heures
Alex Vieira @ Serge Frocheur
En avril 1995, j'ai eu le plaisir d'enregistrer, tout au long du circuit Bugatti (construit en 1966), l'édition des "24 heures du Mans Motos", formidable course d'endurance de grands sportifs. Le circuit, d'une longueur de 4,430 kms, consiste entre autres en une ligne droite de 674m ainsi que de 14 virages. Vrombissements, accélérations et débrayages, crissements de pneus, petits dérapages, bureau de comptage et du jury, ambiances nocturnes de stands, changements de pneus ...
Nous assistions alors à une bagarre incroyable puisque les cinq grandes marques ont été en tête tour à tour. Sur 57 motos au départ, seules 28 ont franchi la ligne d'arrivée. Les chutes et les casses ont éliminé les Kawasaki et les Ducati.
sont arrivés sur le Podium les équipages suivants:
1 Vieira / Nicotte / Morrison (Honda) 764 tours - 3 384kms - 141,1 km/h
2 Moineau / Lavieille / Gomez (Suzuki)
3 Morillas / Deletang / Bonoriz (Yamaha)
09/04/2025
Shoot the player piano
"Shoot the Player Piano" is a 1999 work work for video and music: an imaginary orchestra of aged and unusual mechanical instruments. Almost all of the sounds that you hear did not come from the accompanying instruments on the screen (with two exceptions: the sound of the paper roll turning, and the banjo tremolo). For this piece, she used a large library of samples detuned, altered, edited, and arranged.
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