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In Classical Antiquity, as in the modern European tradition, the armillary spheres, geocentric, and then heliocentric, were not only models of the universe, but also supports for contemplation, inviting the viewer to meditate on the place of man in the immensity of the cosmos, on the vanity of his values, on the ephemeral nature of his existence in the light of the cosmic eternity.

"Sphaera Armillaris" is inspired by this philosophical tradition and invites to a journey in spirit into the mechanics of the world: ambient music, made of slow rotations and expansion of the gaze, between centre and periphery, between different scales of contemplation and listening, in the mechanics and geometry of cosmic circles and wheels.

It could be worse...

 

 Before the drastic reduction in stream fees announced for 2024, Spotify's algorithms are kind enough to provide us with a review of the year (almost) gone by...

These figures testify to my audience, confidential but real, and in my eyes honorable, given that my music doesn't fit into the mainstream ambient boxes: too abstract, too dark, not melodic enough, no rhythm, a little too experimental, too atmospheric, and so on.

I see this as a major encouragement to continue on my path, without losing my soul, and remaining myself...

There is indeed an international public for music that's a little "different", that stands out from the standards of yoga and other relaxation music...

From South America to the Japanese archipelago, from the farthest reaches of Canada to Africa, from Northern Europe to Australia, there's a loyal, open-minded following for my creative journey...

Thanks to all my listeners and to the playlists curators who support my music and share my tracks!

ALBUMS ARE TO STREAMING WHAT GASTRONOMY IS TO FAST FOOD...

 

One of the major changes affecting music creation today is the promotion of single tracks to the detriment of albums, in CD, vinyl or cassette format.

 

The supremacy of streaming over album purchases, whether in physical or digital form, marks the end of concept albums and the reign of individualized tracks that can be endlessly recombined and recontextualized in hybrid playlists, with a strong anonymization effect.

 

Most of my musical life, both as a listener and as a creator, has taken place in the album era. "Dark Side of the Moon", "Close to the Edge", "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway", but also "Blonde on Blonde" or "Beggars Banquet", to limit myself to a few references, have unfolded for me coherent musical universes, thought out, conceptualized, linked by an aesthetic and an artistic project.

 

Similarly, my classical musical education has led me to listen to symphonies and concertos in their successive movements, and to coherent bodies of lieder or sonatas.

 

Can you imagine Beethoven symphonies or Vivaldi concertos being deconstructed in Spotify playlists? Or Mahler 5th Symphony? Will its "Adagietto" will be featured in “Playlists for sleep, relaxation, yoga” ? Come on!

 

So, is it still possible today to produce a "concept album"?

 

As an ambient musician, I'm still deeply attached to this format.

 

I like the idea that my "albums" tell a story, create a world, explore spaces and create atmospheres by following a common thread.

 

I like the idea that an album, even of ambient and electronic music, is a creative entity, a whole, with aesthetic, sonic and emotional coherence.

 

I like the idea that an album, from the first track to the last, unrolls a common thread and invites the listener to immerse themselves as if on a journey.

 

Perhaps this concept of musical creation is definitely outdated. I suppose the album format still makes sense for international stars and record companies who can still promote the CD object. But even then, the dismemberment of works is required for commercial exploitation on streaming platforms.

 

Of course, single releases are naturally destined to explode streams...

 

But what sense is there in seeing works cut up into tracks subject to the algorithms of the platforms, the goodwill of playlist curators, and the vagaries of listeners' "likes"?

I like Bandcamp because it recognizes the artistic integrity of the album, as a concept that organizes several tracks around an idea, an atmosphere, an emotion and an artwork...

It's probably the last "Treasure Island" for true explorers of musical worlds that are often marginal, non-commercial, but faithful to a creative ethic, and willing to take the time to listen. An album is to streaming what gastronomy is to fast food... 

 

Thanks for reading this post... 

 

... and, by the way, here is my Bandcamp Page:    link

 

Listening to Music / Creating Music

 

It's a truism to say that listening to music is learned and enriched over the course of a lifetime, through concerts and recordings, with steps of discovery, zones of comfort and discomfort, strategies for deciphering, and specific aesthetic pleasures. Some ears can be expert, like those of music critics comparing classical recordings, or those of music lovers in this or that particular genre.

 

Another point is striking. Every musician's composition integrates and adapts the memory of the works he has listened to, and the musical genres that have accompanied him throughout his life. In other words, his musical sensibility, his creativity and his sound universe retain traces, obvious or discreet, of the music that has shaped his own listening and sensibility.

 

We might therefore ask ourselves whether every musician is not engaged in a process of repetition, or rather in an attempt to return to the sources of his inspiration and to the models and references that have shaped his own musical personality, and have, in the end, given him the desire to pass from the status of listener to that of creator.

 

Another way of putting this idea... Is it possible to innovate when you carry the memory of everything you've heard, of all the musics you listened to? This question is equally valid for the writer, who carries the memory of all the texts he has read, or for the visual artist, who carries the memory of all the works he has seen...

OUMUPO (3): Time and Space

 

 

I'm continuing my reflexive thread about music (my music, but non only...).  Basically, what are these auditory artifacts that I construct and decide, at a given moment, to share with an audience?

I like the term "artifact". Because music is constructed. It's the result of craftsmanship, of assembly, of shaping. I don't share the mythology of the creative genius who produces a work by pure intuition, without effort. Music is the result of work, like a text, a painting or a sculpture. It is an artifact.

Music is first and foremost a segment of time: there is a beginning, an end, a measurable duration. But at the same time, we know that certain types of music linger in the mind and sensibility of the listener long after the end of listening, in the form of a kind of memorial halo... Music is a segment of time shared with the musician, but also with all the other listeners, particularly in the context of collective listening, in a concert for example.

Music is also a multi-dimensional space, with three or more dimensions, where sounds, harmonics and melodies move, coexist and overlap. The very essence of music is to create spaces that can defy the laws of physics and geometry, through the trajectory and layering of sounds, through the interplay between proximity and distance, through scales of depth.

Electronic, ambient or acousmatic music sculpts spaces that are possible or impossible, Euclidean or non-Euclidean, reassuring or vertiginous.

I like to play with panoramic effects, delays and reverberations to create immersive environments that lead listeners to rethink their position in relation to the sounds they hear...

TWILIGHT: Ambient Music for the Threshold of the Night

 

Between day and night, the time of twilight begins...
A slow fade of light, shadow and color, as the city lights awaken from their daytime torpor.

Between wakefulness and sleep lies the time of twilight...
A silent film of memories, sensations and thoughts, which this musical project attempts to set to sound...

Imbued with a gentle melancholy, this intimate ambient journey to the threshold of night explores the confines of silence, sculpted by slow melodies...

 

Bandcamp 

 

TWILIGHT: Ambient Music for the Threshold of the Night

 

OUMUPO (2)

 If I pursue this reflexive (and ego-centric) effort - what is the music I'm trying to create?

... a few key-words come to mind...

- SLOWNESS: my music is a praise of slowness. Stretched, multidimensional time... taking the time... to listen, to follow the birth, the apogee, the evanescence of a sound...

- INTROSPECTION: my music is introspective... I mean, it doesn't invite you to dance at a techno rave (I've got nothing against techno raves!), but to focus on the present moment, whether it's daydreaming, relaxation, intellectual concentration, meditative accompaniment... That is... Just listening to music...

- ABSTRACTION: I like the idea that music sculpts and reconfigures mental spaces, helping us to perceive the world and reality from different points of view. I like the idea that music helps the listener perceive... abstract forms, ideas, possible worlds, unsuspected spaces...

[among the albums that have given me this experience, both aural and intellectual... Tangerine Dream [Phaedra, Rubycon, Zeit, Atem]... Klaus Schulze [rrlicht, Cyborg, Black Dance, X, Mirage...], Brian Eno [On Land, Music for Airports, Apollo...].

- MINIMALISM: a good musician must erase, subtract, renounce, reach the essential, the quintessence, in an economy of sounds, in a reaffirmed demand for listening...

OUMUPO ("Ouvroir de Musique Potentielle")

 

How could I put my music into words?
How could I describe what comes out of my keyboards and virtual instruments that I consider to be "my" music?

And am I in the best position to talk about it?

I'm not a programmer or a "composer" in the strict sense.

I see myself more as a craftsman, using sounds and sonic spaces as others use colors, shapes and materials: as a medium for a creative performance, where intuition and improvisation play an essential role.

There's a necessity, a logic to improvisation: at a given moment, while composing my palette of sounds, setting up spatialization effects, my fingers on the keyboard find the right tempo, the right tonalities, the right harmonic path... It could not be otherwise...

Basically, I'm following threads of intuition, a bit like the "automatic writing" of surrealist poets like André Breton, Soupault and co (all things being equal, of course).

But to continue this literary metaphor, I'm probably also close to OULIPO, the Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle, represented by writers like Raymond Queneau, Marcel Duchamp, Georges Pérec, Jacques Roubaud and many others...

We should create OUMUPO, L'Ouvroir de Musique Potentielle... whose founding text could be the "Oblique Strategies" card game created by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt.

"Oblique Strategies" means reintroducing the rules of the creative game into a combinatory of possibilities...

One of these rules, in my musical work, is the staggered duplication of the same track on several instruments. This shift creates a series of random events within a predefined harmonic structure. What would otherwise be pure superposition, even if shifted, is most often cut and sculpted by silences through an editing stage...

 The result is random music edited by human decision...