Although the promo blurb tells me “Bruno Duplant is a prolific composer and a musician living in the north of France. He has collaborated with many musicians around the globe and has also made solo works” he’s one of many younger musician/composers in the contemporary field that I’d never heard of before (at least to my knowledge) with a vast repertoire of releases. Currently this is number 100 out of 104 releases on Discogs where he’s a main artist.
SOMBRES MIROIRS is two big slices of sonic construction that evoke a somewhat Karlheinz Stockhausen TRANS like feel, or that of some Paul Dolden, making use of instrumental sounds subjected to intense processing, filtering and layering. As such, it amounts to thick slabs of ever changing sound, with tonalities shifting over and within the music, on which certain sounds break the surface: wind instruments, chimes, and all sorts of percussion, sometimes becoming the focus where the droning textures move to the background. This careful use of composition, moving from thick bombast to more fragile elements, is the key to the work’s success, achieving a sense of composition. There are thus many surprises within the sonic adventure, not least some lovely bowed bass work at the opening of the second part, recalling Fernando Grillo’s work with the great Iancu Dumitrescu.
In all, SOMBRES MIROIRS is much more than the “very nice avant classical” I noted on my first listen, it is a groundbreaking new development on an all too rarely visited genre in new music. Alan Freeman
A bold statement in the liner notes: ‘There is no progress in art’. (I personally would have added an exclamation mark).
This is followed by some philosophical musings about the relationship of art with time, and ‘with its time.’ And about the fact that the ‘sounds we hear on this album are grouped in a harmonious relationship’, are ‘a deliberate escape from the linearity of chronological time and the appetite for another, imaginary time, which allows for the most diverse and strange associations.’
Sounds somewhat pretentious and difficult to grasp perhaps, but don’t let that put you off. After all, the most interesting ‘ambient’ music should make you lose track of time. And, above that, may also reveal an uncanny yet familiar strangeness.
The music on this album consists of improvisations on an Iberian pipe organ built in 1801, played by Xoán-Xil López, in a sonic dialogue with the electronics and field recordings performed by Haarvöl:Fernando José Pereira and João Faria.
The four tracks on this album all ‘contain a certain degree of familiarity that is simultaneously undermined by an inherent strangeness’, demonstrating what Freud meant with his notion of ‘unheimlich’. But you’ll probably feel that ‘familiar strangeness’ even without reading the liner notes.
How do we manage the process of loss and alienation when looking from the perspective of the soon to be lost? What kind of empathy should we develop as listeners towards an effaced, or soon to be effaced, habitat? What is an ecological crisis in an era where an accelerated need to improve, industrialise and colonise becomes the norm in countries of the Global South? What is there to be saved and transmitted to the Western World in search of a critically informed exchange? What kind of creative methodologies should we develop to achieve this? What is the role of an artist in the process? How do we render acknowledgeable the wealth of cultural products, creative practices and indigenous habitats that have never seen the surface of History’s big and exclusive agenda?
Media artist, composer and researcher Budhaditya Chattopadhyay dares to tackle these questions. His recent publications (including Sound Practices in the Global South and Sonic Perspectives from the Global South) address a gap in knowledge by highlighting the creative sonic practices and decolonial soundmaking of countries of the Global South. As a recording artist, Chattopadhyay sets up a nexus of associations, provocations and uneasy observations about the violent and accelerated urbanisation and industralisation of Indian cities and habitats, operating as “a nomadic listener,” recording and reflecting on what he hears.
Withering Field, released by the Portuguese label Crónica, follows this same line of work, providing a 35-minute contemplative listening journey through the alienating process of dislocating indigenous habitats from their natural settings, in specific sites now considered Special Economic Zones (SEZ), forced to gearing fast towards a contemporary urbanisation. Contemplative listening places the listener at the heart of the process. Through the different sequences of the work, the artist presents what is/was at stake, what was and will be.
The location’s acoustic properties are introduced through minute and meticulous recordings of foreground and background details, machinery versus natural habitats, and a swarm of insects. There are moments in the recording in which the indigenous non-human and human communities seem to be attempting to contest and reverse the irreversible, standing against the wave of erasure. Every sonic gesture in Withering Field leaves a testimony of a passing trace in defiance of loss. At 09:00 the machinery is already getting closer, occupying the foreground, and yet eight minutes later indigenous drumming and singing emerges amidst the noise to protest and to reclaim. As the work comes to an end, we witness the gradual dislocation of these voices as they become engulfed in the hum and noise of contemporary urbanisation, reminiscent of fast metro trains, ventilation units and traffic jams. They become an echo and a stain against the walls of the new built cities.
Withering Field is a longform collection of intense moments of clarity and contrast and a great introduction to Chattopadhyay’s very personal and critically engaged work. (Maria Papadomanolaki)
This piece documents a live performance at the 2016 Sonic Scope festival to which Emídio Buchinho and Ricardo Guerreiro brought private individual intents that were shared towards the construction of an unpredictable path.
“A path is made by walking on it” should serve as a motto for the constructive experience of extending space-time: an experience marked by sensual contact with the materiality of all things, supported by sound. The relational dimension of sound marks a regime of transmissibility that exposes the multi-faceted nature of sound objects, not just characterizable by their aural dimension alone. The continuous recognition of the surrounding acoustic environment would therefore be the shared strategy for a listening process that would feed the creative dialogue.
How can each (non-)action of a musician on stage affect the overall sonic dimension?
How can formal unfoldings and redoublings extend the experience of heightening presence and simultaneously deepening the sensation of silence?
How is it, finally, possible to underline what is left excluded from what is being done?
“(Un)Folding” is now available to stream or download from Crónica.
Behind Sun Dog, we find the duo of Isabelle Duthoit (vocals) and ErikM (electronics). Of the latter, I heard before. He’s been around since the early 90s when he came on the improvised music scene armed with electronics, such as CDs, miniDisc and other electronics. He played with Luc Ferrari, Christian Marclay, Thurston Moore and others. From Isabelle Duthoit, I had not heard before. She had classical training and started an improvisation music festival in 1994. Besides voice, she also plays the clarinet (not on this release) and played concerts with Michel Doneda, Franz Hautzinger and others. The two climbed a mountain before landing in the village of Sault, where they recorded the fourteen pieces on this CD. Quite a surprising release for Cronica Electronica, I think. I know this label primarily for their releases that deal with technology, by which I mean laptop technology. Of course, ErikM uses electronics, which is also technology, but the result of this interaction with a voice makes this an unusual release for this label. And that is because the music is more part of the world of improvised music than the electro-acoustic and modern musique concrète it usually does. There are aspects of this duo that one might call electro-acoustic, with ErikM doing quite some radical stuff at times. Duthoit’s vocalisations fit the electronics pretty well. And times, one could say she imitates the electronics, which blends naturally, but there are also instances in which she tries to be as much contrast as she can be. They keep their musical interactions brief, two to four minutes, with a few exceptions, which dramatically benefits this release. Some of the album moments that are very much improvised and not so much up my alley are mixed with more abstract bursts of electronics, noisy and electro-acoustic doodling – very much up my street. There is some good energy with in this release to enjoy. (FdW)
Máquina Magnética are an experimental all-star combo featuring Pedro Tudela, Miguel Carvalhais, Gustavo Costa and Rodrigo Carvalho. Tudela and Carvalhais are known for their project @c and as founders of Crónica, the record label behind this release. Costa is a remarkable drumming and percussion talent, active on the Portuguese underground scene since the early nineties with seven albums, solo and collaborative, to his credit. Rodrigo Carvalho brings his generative visuals and interactive lighting expertise to the group – expertise developed through his work with the Porto-based creative lab Openfield, and also Boris Chimp 504, his sci-fi inspired collaboration with Miguel Neto. Máquina Magnética makes the most of the diverse skills and backgrounds of its members. The group incorporate a wide range of organic and synthetic tones, studio and live performances, and electronic and acoustic sounds – all brought together through a mixture of structured composition and free improvisation. These dichotomies are also a reference to two live performances at O’culto da Ajuda in Lisbon and gnration in Braga respectively and to two studios Sonoscopia and Crónica, both of which are located in Porto. These places are where the album was recorded and mixed in a continuous process of creative exchange and open performance. This process has led to an expressive project of material beats and elegant projections. The cliché that an electronic live set might not be able to compete with the physicality of a ‘traditional’ live performance is completely dismantled by the group. These artists renew and reshape audiovisual performance, creating an experience that is intense, fresh and utterly engaging – conventional pop stars could learn a lot from them. (Aurelio Cianciotta)
Bruno Duplant è un musicista e compositore francese. Molto attivo nella ricerca sull’avanguardia del Novecento e sulla musica concreta, l’artista è tornato in piena estate con “Sombres Miroirs”, il prosieguo naturale di “Élégie du temps présent”, pubblicato nel 2021, e seconda tappa di un trittico che si completerà con “Insondables humeurs”.
L’ultimo lavoro di Duplant vuole essere una sorta di riflessione in musica su pianeta e natura, su umanità e civiltà, ed è per questo che rincorre, in maniera costante e quasi circolare, sensazioni ambivalenti e opposte fra loro: speranza e disperazione, luce e buio, musica e silenzio che si alternano senza soluzione di continuità.
“Sombres Miroirs” si divide in due parti, con la prima leggermente più lunga della seconda: se la prima entra lentamente nel vivo, introducendo l’ascoltatore verso un mondo tetro, prima di sottili e illusorie fasi di scioglimento che precedono fasi ancora più scure e brevi squarci di luce, anticipando un finale dove entrano in gioco silenzi e sperimentazioni varie, nella seconda parte “Sombres Miroirs” sembra cercare tracce di luce, pur conservando una certa inquietudine di fondo.
Con “Sombres Miroirs”, Bruno Duplant prosegue il suo racconto in musica del nostro tempo: con uno sguardo lucido e razionale, l’artista si cimenta in un’operazione tanto ardua quanto affascinante, che scalderà i cuori di chi è già avvezzo a sonorità sospese fra l’ambient e la sperimentazione. (Piergiuseppe Lippolis)
The current geologic era is ascribed to the Anthropocene defined by unprecedented manmade violence over earth’s ecologies and natural environments. In this era, the ecological balance and the traditional livelihood of indigenous habitats in the re-emerging economies of Global South are endangered due to a global pressure for rapid growth in technological infrastructure and industrial development, which is a modernist project. Facing an impending climate catastrophe, these tribal landscapes and indigenous habitats along with their naturalist settings are undergoing massive displacement and dispossession resulting in an estrangement and alienation of the tribal community from nature, on which their livelihood has been based. Withering Field creates a narrative auditory situation to facilitate a contemplative listening to such events of displacement and dispossession. The work is developed through extensive fieldwork and recordings made at specific sites now considered Special Economic Zones (SEZ), situated in South Asia. It aims to delineate transitions of indigenous habitats dislocated from their natural settings, forced to gearing fast towards a contemporary urbanisation. This process is rendered in the composition within a mode of criticality and questioning. The project not only intends to foster the capacity to reconnect with the tribal community, but also makes the displacement of natural landscapes and societies audible for wider public awareness. Methodology of the composition includes incorporating the sonic elements collected from the sites to create a post-immersive and augmented narrative facilitating a context-aware listening, which creates the space for in-depth reflections on the intricate processes of environmental decay and destruction of nature that deeply affect the indigenous communities, along with their endangered memories and eroding cultural practices.
Budhaditya Chattopadhyay is an Indian-born media artist, composer, researcher, and writer. Incorporating diverse media, such as sound, text, and moving image, Chattopadhyay produces works for large-scale installation and live performance addressing contemporary issues of climate crisis, human intervention in the environment and ecology, urbanity, migration, race, and decolonization. Chattopadhyay has received numerous fellowships, residencies and international awards. His works have been widely exhibited, performed or presented across the globe, and published by Gruenrekorder (Germany) and Touch (UK). Chattopadhyay has authored The Nomadic Listener (2020); his writings on various issues around sound and listening regularly appear in peer-reviewed journals, magazines, and other publications internationally. Chattopadhyay holds a PhD in sound studies from the Academy of Creative and Performing Arts, Leiden University, and an MA in new media from Aarhus University; he completed a 1-year postdoctoral fellowship, and is embarking on another. Chattopadhyay lives and works in and out of Kolkata, Berlin, and The Hague.
“Withering Field” is now available as a limited release CD, stream, or download, from Crónica.
