| $20.93
new to stock as of
june 22nd, 2009
threads:
1980s-electronic
electro-acoustic-composition
musique-concrète
digital-musics
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| | | ina-grm (france) #ina c 1020 cd philippe mion “si c’était du jour ...” compact disc - si c'etait du jour (16:27) 1999
- des jambes de femmes tout le temps (22:13) 1997
- statue (18:28) 1985
| 2002 release ; two contemporary-era & one mid-80s piece from philippe mion ...
most remarkable to me is that, despite the 14-year gap between “si c’etait du jour” & “statue” & the respective changes in compositional techniques in the interim, they really sound like they were made back-to-back ; mion’s adherence to sharp, attack-based sounds trailing off into spectrally-enhanced ambiences remains unchanged throughout ...
not one of the more immediately attention-grabbing titles in the ina-grm catalogue, but has a certain subtle charm ... |
| | si c'etait du jour - 1999- 16'27
(if it were day)
commissioned by the ina-grm
stereo version - 8 tracks original version
composed in the studios of the ina-grm
firstly: the aim is to confront the idea of rhythm. later, a research session in capturing sounds, a heavy crate full of different objects in one's hands: the slight tetany which the weight causes in the muscles of the arm begins to bring out and amplify the natural tension; everything trembles, vibrates, quivers, vacillates and clashes in a barely discernible fashion.
the way is now open and leads me to develop and explore this trembling and to examine with great care the unending poem of the tremors and their repercussions, and then to exploit this rough collection of sounds by producing jumbled noises and roars, a din and a shambles ...
rather like "a rat in a tool box" ...
now that the poetic and musical field is expanded, there emerge the desire for rhythm and rhythms of desire, a nervousness of the senses, the energies of will and desire, in a piece of writing in sections where memory is ceaselessly evoked. |
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des jambes de femmes tout le temps - 1997 - 22'13
(women's legs all the time)
dedicated to françois bayle
commissioned by the state and by the ina-grm
supported by the muse en circuit
stereo version - 8 tracks original version
composed in the studios of the ina-grm
and of the muse en circuit
in my music, without any doubt, something other than music plays a part in my initial choices. speaking very generally, it is the poetic connection to the world which comes into play. i could explain this willingly by visual representations, but these are no use to me as far as musical composition is concerned.
on the contrary, in order to compose, first of all i always have to get rid of images, and put them to one side, so that they are only a kind of identifying justification of things, enriching the song of movements and living forms.
here, a kind of choreographic idea was present in my work: a sort of rectangular screen where women's bare legs pass by, jump, dance, quite joyful, lively, and light, either lightly touching the floor, or heavy, firm and solid ...
a calligraphy of legs, an alphabet of movement. and then, this music is fuelled by a fascination, perhaps rather a mystical one, for "briefism", for the present reduced to its most ephemeral being, the unattainable and emphatic operator of a precious cut in the fabric of the world, separating the before from the after ... the expectation, or the anticipation, of memory. from this come tiny sparks, hard like metal, and almost indiscernible, like drops of water. briefness, in itself like a break in the perceptual comfort of the listening. a cold abstraction without a place in good old concrete naturalism.
the dreams of my childhood spent in town where i lived on the ground floor with a bedroom looking out onto the street probably influenced my taste for such concision in sound: as i lay in the dark i never wearied of listening to the footsteps of passers-by at night. it was the time of 60s fashion: women in high heels, men in steel tips; sounds that were clattering, clipped, delicate and rough, feet with a firm tread, little needle-sharp sounds which troubled me, little white holes in the dark night.
my initial inclination towards this minimalism, which is temporal here, led me on naturally to widen this area; in the pattern of what happens, in the "size" of certain ways of moving and in tiny but very obvious distinctive identities which work for me in music like "punctums" in photography, and like r. barthes's idea in "la chambre claire".
the wish to further develop this idea took me also right to the other side of the world. thus, length of time is shaped in very contrasting "values" of musicality and intention. obviously, the large and the enormous compete with the minuscule, but, more subtly, the minuscule makes itself heard within the large, at least, i hope so. |
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statue - 1985 - 18'28
commissioned by the ina-grm
stereophonic support
composed in the studios of the ina-grm.
this piece, sentimental in its inspiration, and for which i gave myself a limit (twenty minutes for a single piece using limited "material") reflects in no uncertain terms the immoderate passion i had at that time for friction, in particular the friction of a bow, which constitutes the main part of the work.
my fascination was evident in the gestural inscription, the tracks of the movement (pull-push) in its execution, and particularly in its respiratory metaphor; but also in the infinite variety of microevents produced by the trembling movement and the resistance of various materials which are rubbed:
the metal objects which were made to vibrate produced beautiful sounds which were mostly harmonic, wide brightly coloured far away horizons, full of promise, but hollow, buried in the very heart of the material, quickly covered by a "white layer", a diaphanous imprint of the movement, woven by the friction of the horsehair, like a transparent veil modestly thrown over all the pathos ...
the musical project was born also from the contrast of paradoxical aspirations:
- on the one hand, the desire to outstrip the flow of magnetic tape, this passing of time with its length fixed on a support, chanting as if under hypnosis and with its permanent "blank" tempo (of course ... ).
- on the other hand the desire to stop preventing myself from enjoying the continuum, to which acousmatic art (analogical at least...) is, in essence, predisposed.
the rubbing movement has probably allowed me to reconcile opposites, the flow of the magnetic tape had seemed to me to be taken over, covered, continuously occupied by the thrust of the movement, by the friction of things and the air.
in this sense it was quite an "instrumental" project.
the piece was put together on tape, in analogue sound; but at that time i was able to take advantage of some digital processing which was very new and not yet completely operational, the syter system of the ina-grm.
that enabled me, in particular, to provide a detailed composition of the abundance and development of phrases by moving them instantaneously at the time of the playback, a sort of direct montage, in sequences which are sometimes already quite complex. |
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