A peine s’est on remis d’Echoplasme, qu’eRikm (électronique) nous propose un nouveau projet tout aussi envoûtant et singulier, aux cotés d’Isabelle Duthoit (voix).
Avec Col des Tempètes, le duo dessine des paysages surnaturels, habités par une faune aux faux-semblants familiers et d’êtres fantômatiques à la présence inquiétante.
C’est par touches que Sun Dog nous fait gravir ces montagnes hérissées de pierres et de légendes, d’arbustes désséchés par le froid et de spectres cachés dans les entrailles d’une géographie millénaire recelant des histoires défendues.
Avec peu d’éléments, le duo réussit pourtant à composer des atmosphères riches en surprises et bouillonnantes d’idées, trajectoires aux effluves peuplées d’ombres et de traces, d’existences floues et de chuchotements aux consonances parfois inuit, de crispations hurlées et d’animalité écorchée. Remarquable. Roland Torres
Artist and electro-acoustic composer Tarek Atoui (Beirut, Lebanon, 1980) works on large-scale compositions that stem from anthropological, ethnological, musicological, and technical research. His exhibitions weave installations, performances, and education, in processes that move away from the conventional notion of performance, both for the performer and the audience, and that suggest forms of visual, aural, tactile, and somatic experience of sound. Atoui’s first exhibition in Portugal, Waters’ Witness, at the Serralves Museum, is part of the project I/E, ongoing since 2015, in which he captures the sounds of port cities — Athens, Abu Dhabi, Singapore, Beirut or Porto — by recording their harbours’ industrial, human, and ecological activities. Together with artist/recordist Eric La Casa, they listen to sound below the surface of the sea or within materials such as metal, stone, and wood. On Waters’ Witness, the audio recordings of the seaports of Athens, Abu Dhabi and Porto are played through materials chosen in each location — marble stones from Athens, steal beams from Abu Dhabi, and wooden structures housing compost, worms and organic material, specifically produced for the Serralves presentation. The work with organic decomposing matter takes Waters’ Witness in a new direction: an acoustic ecology that receives and perpetuates residual sounds through the audible frontiers of a world in flux. This unique soundscape extends from the Museum’s central room to the Park in the shape of sound constellations, platforms and systems activated throughout the entire period of the exhibition in scheduled performances, collaborative and educational workshops.
As Things Flow (for Waters’ Witness) is the recording of a performance held on July 3, 2022, as an activation of the exhibition Waters’ Witness by Tarek Atoui at Fundação de Serralves — Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto. The exhibition was curated by Filipa Loureiro and on view between February 24 and August 28, 2022, and included a series of activation performances curated by Pedro Rocha. Image: Tarek Atoui, “Waters’ Witness”, installation view, Fundação de Serralves, 2022; photo by Filipe Braga.
eRikm (aka Erik Matt) is a French sound artist, electronics player, composer, improviser and visual artist, who has made a life-long habit of crossing all territories and «world-systems» deemed «independent», «institutional», and is known for his collaborations with Christian Marclay, Thurston Moore, Otomo Yoshihide and vocal artists Phil Minton, Catherine Jauniaux, Natacha Muslera and Dalila Khatir. Isabelle Duthoit is a French vocal artist, classically-trained musician and clarinetist, who has collaborated with Franz Hautzinger, Georg Gräwe and Carl Ludwig Hübsch. Together, eRikm and Duthoit are the Sun Dog duo and Col des Tempètes is their debut album, recorded in stereo at M!lieu in January 2022.
eRikm tells that duo was initiated when he and Duthoit were climbing «the Kilimanjaro of Provence». Then, «Beyond the Dome of the Storms, we reach the pass. After climbing this modest 1909 meters, we descend on the partially-icy asphalt. The setting sun casts on the summit rare silhouettes of pine trees shaped by the wind. The sea of clouds at our feet reminds me of the past experience of the SunDog» (Sundogs are colored spots of light that develop due to the refraction of light through ice crystals), which he experienced in Iceland.
Col des Tempètes (Strom pass) offers 14 distinct wanderings in sounds and vocal utterances. eRikm creates suggestive and abstract, otherworldly sounds while Duthoit assumes the role of a modern-day shaman and casts her seductive yet vulnerable spells and chants. eRikm extends gently the vocal range of Duthoit with his sonic wizardry and Duthoit colors his inventive electronics palette with enigmatic, wordless dramas. But often you can not know who produces the electronics, processed and mutated sounds, and who is producing the acoustic, human voices. Sun Dog becomes one, inseparable entity, mirroring its multiplying refractions with expressive, inspiring imagination. Eyal Hareuveni
We’re proud to announce the release of Sun Dog’s debut release, “Col des Tempètes”, featuring Isabelle Duthoit on voice and ErikM on electronics, available as a limited-release CD, download, or stream!
Der Musiker und Künstler ErikM und die renommierte Vokalistin Isabelle Duthoit bringen unter dem Namen Sun Dog ein gemeinsames, auf experimenteller Stimmperformance und einer vielfältige, nicht minder experimentierfreudigen Elektronik basierendes Album heraus. “Col des Tempètes” entstand nach ausgedehnten Wanderungen der beiden in eher unwegsamen Gegenden in Island und Frankreich und unter dem Eindruck lokaler Naturphänonene (der Gletscher Vatnajökull, der Mistral). Das Album erscheint als CD und zum Download bei Crónica.
We’re proud to release the new album by Haarvöl and Xoán-Xil López, created from organ improvisations in an 1801 Iberian pipe organ and further reworked with electronics and field recordings. “The Uncanny Organization of Timeless Time” includes four tracks that are involved by a counter-narrative of a strange familiarity that surrounds them and is embodied in an absolute temporal timelessness.
