Music is now one of my main activities, along with reading and writing.
Not a day goes by without me immersing myself in sound, either experimenting with my instruments and creating new sounds, recording, or editing and mixing my recordings.
Many of these recordings are on hold in my archive.
Gradually, album projects are taking shape, based on a sound color, an atmosphere, a concept.
I am not a musician who remains trapped in one style or genre.
I try to evolve, progress, and deepen my knowledge and practice at the crossroads of different musical trends that make it difficult to label...
Minimal, experimental, abstract, immersive, ambient, electro-acoustic, atmospheric—my music is a little bit of all of these things.
But ultimately, classifications don't really matter...
“The Origins of Astronomy” and “Perceptual Drift” are two albums that I consider to be finished.
I consider albums to be “finalized” when I can listen to them over and over again, several times a day and day after day, without feeling the need to correct any flaws or make any improvements. This stabilization usually comes after several stages of editing and corrections.
These two albums will therefore probably be my first releases in the first quarter of 2026.
This year, 2026, should also see the completion of a collaborative project that is particularly close to my heart. I will come back to this soon...
In the meantime, I wish you all a very happy holiday season and, despite the desperate turmoil of our current world, a peaceful and happy 2026.
I suppose that, like all my fellow musicians, I am somewhat overwhelmed by the ads, promotions, and announcements, often sent in rapid succession, by manufacturers of virtual instruments and, in particular, by publishers of sampled instrument for Kontakt...
I can't help but wonder...
1. Has the “cinematic” criterion become the only selling point for these manufacturers? Are they no longer targeting the market of experimental, electroacoustic, neo-Berlin school, or other musicians? What exactly is “cinematic” music? Can anyone give me a definition?
2. Seeing the proliferation of instruments based on orchestral samples, symphony orchestras, string quartets, brass, woodwinds, guitars, etc... I wonder: aren't these Kontakt instrument manufacturers (in particular) basically sampling each other, pirating their own sample libraries with a few cosmetic changes?
Seriously, are there really so many instrument publishers who have the means to produce original libraries of string orchestras, felt pianos, or concert pianos?
I don't have the answer...
But the VST market, with its aggressive marketing, raises questions for me...
It's up to us musicians to be discerning and choose true innovation and creative potential from among commercial offerings that seem so redundant...
Sailing into the unknown: Christian Wittman and the ghosts of the Northwest Passage
By mapping the void, modern Europe convinced itself that a maritime corridor lay dormant somewhere beneath the Arctic ice. The Northwest Passage was born of a geographical assumption that became a political obsession. Behind the legend were figures embarking on a journey that did not yet exist, and often toward their own demise. a chronicle of a record that scrutinizes the margins of the world rather than its myth.
Christian Wittman explores the myth of the Northwest Passage without heroism or folklore. In The Northwest Passage, he sculpts a soundscape of drones, creaks, and mists, where the Arctic becomes less a setting than a space of uncertainty. This is not an expedition narrative, but rather an inner drift, attentive to silences and discreet phenomena. The ambient album questions what remains when bodies disappear, transforming ice into something to be listened to rather than a spectacular image...
A tribute stripped of heroism
What strikes us immediately is the restraint. Wittman does not dramatize anything; he stretches out the space, lets the air circulate, and creates an unstable horizon where landmarks dissolve. The historical explorers, those who, from Hudson to Franklin, attempted to open a route between the Atlantic and the Pacific, never appear explicitly. The album simply inhabits their absence. We perceive fragments, auditory silhouettes, movements of dark masses; never heroic gestures, nothing commemorative. The tribute is conveyed through the material, not through narration.
Textures: coldness as architecture. The compositions are based on meticulous layering, subterranean drones, rustling sounds worked like sediments, abrasive layers that crack and then fall silent. Here, the sea is anything but flat. It breathes, swells, recedes; it acts as a discreet engine that supports each sequence. The creaking of icebergs seems to emerge from an intermediate space—neither documentary nor fictional—and it is this ambiguity that gives the record its density. The result clearly evokes a work of synthesis and sound design that seeks to reproduce physical phenomena rather than illustrate a polar postcard.
“It is not the Arctic that is inhospitable, but our ignorance of how to live in it.” – Vilhjalmur Stefansson (The Friendly Arctic (1921)
Inner journey vs. icy odyssey
The real movement of the album lies in its breathing. The pieces open like corridors of mist, tighten, fragment, then let the diffuse light back in. This is not a chronological narrative. We drift along, as if each track were questioning a state, a wait, a disorientation, an asceticism, without ever seeking resolution. The cold acts here as a functional metaphor: it strips away, reduces gestures, slows down thought. We find ourselves listening to the silences more than the sounds, as if the material were deliberately disappearing to allow vertigo to emerge.
The Arctic, not as a setting but as an interval. The last third of the album is the most compelling: Wittman achieves a sobriety reminiscent of certain minimalist works where a single movement is enough to maintain tension. The Arctic is not treated as a sublime spectacle, but as a zone of indeterminacy. It brings to mind the lines of old maps, the hesitant tracings, the errors of judgment that made the world seem bigger than it was. Far from the routes that were once sought to be forced through the ice floes, this album reminds us that there are still passages that can only be opened by paying attention. Here, the crossing is not geographical: it takes place in the fragile interval between what resonates and what fades away.
Fantastic review of "The Northwest Passage' in the webzine Houz-Motic by Ly Luan
Naviguer dans le blanc : Christian Wittman et les fantômes du Passage du Nord-Ouest
À force de cartographier le vide,
l’Europe moderne s’est persuadée qu’un corridor maritime dormait quelque
part sous les glaces arctiques. Le Passage du Nord-Ouest est né d’un
postulat géographique devenu obsession politique. Derrière la légende,
des silhouettes embarquées vers une route qui n’existait pas encore, et
souvent vers leur propre disparition ; chronique d’un disque qui scrute
les marges du monde plutôt que son mythe
Christian Wittman explore le mythe du Passage du Nord-Ouest sans héroïsme ni folklore. Dans The Northwest Passage,
il sculpte un paysage sonore fait de drones, de craquements et de
brumes, où l’Arctique devient moins un décor qu’un espace d’incertitude.
Pas de récit d’expédition, plutôt une dérive intérieure, attentive aux
silences et aux phénomènes discrets. Le disque ambient
interroge ce qui subsiste quand les corps disparaissent, et transforme
la glace en matière d’écoute plutôt qu’en image spectaculaire…
Un hommage débarrassé d’héroïsme
Christian Wittman DR
Ce qui frappe d’emblée, c’est la retenue. Wittman ne dramatise rien,
il étire l’espace, laisse l’air circuler, installe un horizon instable
où les repères se dissolvent. Les explorateurs historiques, ceux qui, de
Hudson à Franklin, ont tenté d’ouvrir une route entre Atlantique et
Pacifique, n’apparaissent jamais explicitement. Le disque se contente
d’habiter leur absence. On perçoit des fragments, des silhouettes
auditives, des mouvements de masse sombre ; jamais de gestes héroïques,
rien de commémoratif. L’hommage passe par la matière, pas par la narration.
Textures : le froid comme architecture. Les
compositions reposent sur un travail de couches minutieuses, drones
souterrains, bruissements travaillés comme des sédiments, nappes
abrasives qui se fissurent puis se taisent. Ici, la mer n’a rien
d’aplatissant. Elle respire, gonfle, recule ; elle agit comme un moteur
discret qui soutient chaque séquence. Les craquements d’icebergs semblent surgir d’un espace intermédiaire
– ni documentaire, ni fictionnel – et c’est cette ambiguïté qui donne
au disque sa densité. Le rendu évoque nettement un travail de synthèse
et de design sonore cherchant à reproduire des phénomènes physiques
plutôt qu’à illustrer une carte postale polaire.
« It
is not the Arctic that is inhospitable, but our ignorance of how to
live in it.” – Vilhjalmur Stefansson (The Friendly Arctic (1921)
Traversée intérieure vs odyssée glacée
Christian Wittman DR
Le véritable mouvement du disque se trouve dans sa respiration.
Les pièces s’ouvrent comme des couloirs de brume, se resserrent, se
fragmentent, puis laissent de nouveau entrer la lumière diffuse. On
n’est pas dans un récit chronologique. On avance par dérive, comme si
chaque piste interrogeait un état, attente, désorientation, ascèse, sans
jamais chercher la résolution. Le froid agit ici comme une métaphore
fonctionnelle : il dépouille, réduit les gestes, ralentit la pensée. On se surprend à écouter les silences plus que les sons, comme si la matière disparaissait volontairement pour laisser émerger le vertige.
L’Arctique, non comme décor mais comme intervalle. Le
dernier tiers du disque est le plus convaincant : Wittman y atteint une
sobriété qui rappelle certains travaux minimalistes où un seul
mouvement suffit pour maintenir la tension. L’Arctique n’y est pas
traité comme un spectacle sublime, mais comme une zone
d’indétermination. On pense aux lignes de cartes anciennes, aux tracés
hésitants, aux erreurs d’appréciation qui faisaient le monde plus grand
qu’il n’était. Loin des routes qu’on cherchait jadis à forcer dans la
banquise, ce disque rappelle qu’il existe encore des passages qui ne
s’ouvrent qu’en prêtant attention. Ici, la traversée n’est pas géographique : elle se joue dans l’intervalle fragile entre ce qui résonne et ce qui s’efface.
I invite you to join me in a trip into the uncharted, with my new album, "The Northwest Passage, an ambient odyssey through the silent, frozen expanse of the northern seas.
The Northwest Passage was imagined and postulated from the globes and planispheres of modern Europe, before being sought by adventurous navigators who explored the icy waters of the Arctic in search of a sea route linking Europe to Asia, the Atlantic to the Pacific, an alternative to long voyages via the Strait of Magellan or the Cape of Good Hope.
In this album, slow, drifting drones, misty pads, and spectral textures conjure glacial horizons, icy winds, and the faint pulse of unseen currents.
Each note carries you deeper into a world of solitude and shadow, where the beauty of the polar night unfolds in haunting, cinematic detail. This is sound as exploration—an immersive voyage to the edge of the world, and beyond.
Thanks for your support and your interest in my music!
This beautiful photo of Brian Eno is surely a carefully staged scene...
But it touches me with the allegory of creation (artistic, musical, intellectual) that it presents.
Colors, light and shadows, temperature, the time of day or night all play a role in inspiration.
Brian Eno sits alone, in a serene and meditative position, lost in thought, or simply thinking of nothing and letting ideas randomly emerge.
His body posture is relaxed, while his face, seen in profile, is focused, with an inward gaze.
The double-aspect window opens onto a wooded park, and the light seems to caress and paint the foliage. We can guess at the subtle variations in color and brightness as the leaves are stirred by the wind or passing clouds filter the sun's rays.
It looks like a video of Brian Eno himself... "Wednesday morning" or "Friday afternoon", perhaps?
A video static, but undulating in subtle variations over the hours.
Three balls are arranged on the floor: the smallest, white, in the middle of the other two, darker.
Were they arranged this way on purpose? Or are they the result of chance?
This triad opens up a space for creation, made up of rebounds and possible cycles. It could be a planetary system yet to be discovered. Unless it symbolizes the listener between two stereo sound sources.
These three balls are like a Zen koan. What do they mean? Creation becomes possible when we realize that they mean nothing. They are there and invite us to write the first words, to make the first brushstroke, to play the first notes.
What remains is the dark fireplace, which contrasts with the brightness of the window.
Brian Eno turns his back on it.
To create is to turn towards the light.
Even if darkness and the call of nothingness also have their beauty...
This photo of Brian Eno, composed like a painting or a still video, accompanies me in my own work of musical composition.
“I sometimes wonder if my music is essential to the world. But people tell me that it inspires them to write or draw. That's what I liked about David Lynch. He stayed true to himself, didn't seek to become rich and famous, and inspired millions of people to become creative themselves.”
I am pleased to offer you on my Bandcamp page “Views of Mind,” the intimate ambient album that was released on the Shimmering Moods label at the end of July.
For those who appreciate the physicality of CDs and the unique “collector's item” value of a beautiful object with original packaging, I am also offering the last seven copies of a limited edition, which is now sold out.
Kind regards to all
Christian —— “Views of Mind” continues my recent trend towards ambient chamber music, blending electronic soundscapes with acoustic instruments, and moving towards a kind of contemporary classical music.
Through its minimalism, this new album is introspective, unwinding the threads of a slow, fluid, serene and meditative musical reverie.
Like a sonic screen on which to project intimate films, “Views of Mind” encourages contemplative listening, away from the tumult of the world...”
"The groundbreaking electronic music composer and educator Pauline Oliveros (...) dedicated a great deal of her life’s work to spreading her philosophy of Deep Listening, a series of practices and writings teaching the core differences between hearing and listening.
Oliveros long meditated on the concept that hearing is involuntary in nature, while listening requires consciousness.
This is to say, she made a strong case that the act of listening was virtually incompatible with multitasking.
In the Oliveros tradition, listening is something that requires focused attention on the act of listening, to music or sound or the natural world or the person next to you."
Quoted in Liz Pelly, Mood Machine. The Rise of Spotify, p. 36.
ref: Pauline Oliveros, Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice (Deep Listening Publications, 2005).
"It's a tidal wave that has begun to surge at an accelerated pace. And we don't yet fully understand its magnitude. At the beginning of 2025, 10% of the songs posted on the Deezer music streaming service were entirely generated by AI. Last April, that figure rose to 18%. By the start of the fall semester, nearly 28% of the tracks uploaded each day were affected, representing more than 30,000 titles daily. On Wednesday, November 12, Deezer revealed that 34% of new releases on the platform, or nearly 40,000 titles per day, are now entirely synthetic. In other words, in less than a year, the volume of artificial songs has more than tripled.
This trend does not only affect Deezer, the most transparent player on the market. All platforms, from Amazon Music to Apple Music and Spotify, are facing it. The Swedish giant recently revealed that it had removed 75 million unwanted tracks, whose creation was facilitated by advances in AI. This is a colossal amount, considering its catalog of 100 million songs..."
(Excerpt from Le Figaro newspaper website this morning!)
I would like to share with you my new musical project, “Floating Indetermination (For Morton Feldman).”
It is a continuation of my previous work, a form of ambient music evolving towards contemporary, minimalist chamber music.
This album is a tribute to Morton Feldman, the American composer (1926-1987) whose instrumental work has been a source of inspiration for many ambient musicians, including Brian Eno.
Characterized by slowness, silence, and melodic sketches interspersed with sound objects that are echoed in different listening planes, “Floating Indetermination” seeks to explore new musical territories using electronic instrumentation, and in a way, blur the boundaries between ambient and contemporary and minimalist classical music.
The album contains over 90 minutes of music, including a 27 minutes extended version.
In the hope of sharing it as widely as possible, I am offering this album on my Bandcamp page on a “name your price” basis, thanking you in advance for your generosity if you wish to contribute...
More seriously, this extraordinary modular synthesizer inspires several thoughts...
First, of course, hats off to the designers, Yves Usson and Pierre-Jean Tardiveau, for this extraordinary achievement...
We can only hope that this prototype will give Syntesla and French expertise in hardware synthesizer design maximum visibility... and perhaps pave the way for a range of instruments accessible to ordinary musicians...
We can also applaud the educational value of such a synthesizer for teaching the basics of sound synthesis...
But...
What are the uses of such a gigantic device?
We can obviously understand its appeal on stage, as a backdrop for Hans Zimmer's concerts. Klaus Schulze and Tangerine Dream's walls of synthesizers are ridiculously small in comparison... It's also the polar opposite of Kraftwerk's minimalist yet high-tech stage set up.
So Giorgio III is undoubtedly a hyperbolic and breathtaking stage device...
It won't be suitable for all concert halls, but Hans Zimmer doesn't seem to be aiming for the intimate atmosphere of jazz clubs at the moment.
How many operators are needed to manipulate such an ensemble live? One or two in front of each rack?
On the other hand, the real question is undoubtedly that of sonic and musical potential. Where is the added value? In the production of a “big sound” superimposing oscillators? In the possibility of programming completely new and never heard sequences and rhythms? How does it differ from the best existing hardware synthesizers, vintage or contemporary, or even from the most sophisticated virtual emulations?
In other words, beyond its sheer size, what is its potential for sonic and musical innovation?
It is undoubtedly too early to tell, as the few video clips of Zimmer's current concerts do not allow us to judge...
Will Giorgio III significantly change Zimmer's future soundtracks? Basses that make the walls and seats of multiplexes theaters shake? Layers and sequences like we've never heard before?
Is there still something to be invented in the sound and musical potential of large modular systems, after more than fifty years of experimentation in all directions, with Moogs, ARPs, Rolands, PPGs, and others?
Ultimately, we might question this maximalist temptation to always go bigger, more powerful, and beyond the norm, which runs counter to another current trend toward minimalism and simplicity, as well as the specialization of sound tools for innovative uses.
Does the future of electronic music lie in hyperbole, in always more (bigger, more powerful, etc.), or in subtraction, refinement, and simplicity?
Does the future lie in ever more massive and thunderous walls of sound produced by ever more excessive walls of synthesizers, or in innovation in terms of composition and musical structures, regardless of the instruments used?
Beyond its spectacular appearance, which makes it the ultimate fantasy of any musician who uses (or used) modular synthesizers, Giorgio III invites us to reflect on the evolution of electronic music and its potential for creative renewal.
Once again, we can't help but be impressed by the expertise and creative imagination of the designers of this system. There's no doubt that Hans Zimmer will make the best use of it in his concerts and future soundtracks!
"Windy Lands" is the third opus of a climatic and ambient series started with the albums "Misty Lands" and "Frozen Lands".
This musical trilogy explores new aesthetic and sonic directions,
inspired by the minimalist and neoclassical current represented by
composers such as Ólafur Arnalds or Nils Frahm, but also by certain
atmospheres of the ECM label.
With the contribution of string instruments and, on two tracks, of an
electric guitar, "Windy Lands" would like to approach the expressivity
of a small hybrid or mixed chamber music ensemble, between electronic
soundscapes and acoustic sounds, thus reviving the experiments that we
carried out in Lightwave, notably with the album "Bleue comme une
orange".
Original release: January 11, 2023. https://christianwittman.bandcamp.com/album/windy-lands
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REVIEW
“Windy Lands” is an album that builds. Again, all cosmic, and
this time more predominantly electronic, it starts very minimally, then,
as the tracks progress, so the sonic canvas spreads out and stretches
across the horizons, to reveal new textures, new layers and give the
music more strength and depth, as it progresses, almost “orchestral”, in
a minimal sense, on the final couple of tracks...."
ANDY GARIBALDI, Inkeys (UK)
-------------
To redeem here: https://christianwittman.bandcamp.com/yum
"In Zen they say: If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, try it for eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on. Eventually one discovers that it's not boring at all but very interesting"
John Cage, quoted by Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats. John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists, The Penguin Press (2012), p. 385.
"I think it was Steve Reich who said it was clear I was involved in process, but it was a process the audience didn't participate in because they couldn't understand it. I'm on the side of keeping things mysterious, and I have never enjoyed understanding things. If I understand something, I have no further use for it. So I try to make a music which I don't understand and which will be difficult for other people to understand too."
John Cage, quoted by Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats. John Cage, Zen Buddhism and the Inner Life of Artists, The Penguin Press, 2012.
In Denis Villeneuve's films, certain sequences and images are extraordinarily beautiful and powerful. Take, for example, the brief sequence at the beginning of Dune Part Two, where Harkonnen soldiers levitate to the top of a rocky peak in the surreal light of an orange dawn.
(Villeneuve's predilection for the color orange is also evident in the magnificent Las Vegas episode in Blade Runner 2049).
The Harkonnens' weightless ascent is a dreamlike scene that defies the imagination.
I have no idea how it was done. The actors were probably suspended from cables against a green screen before being superimposed onto this desert landscape.
This image, like the entire scene, is related to my musical universe, to the music I like to listen to (I'm thinking of Brian Eno's Apollo) and that I try to create.
A dream of slowness and lightness, of flying in an almost aquatic atmosphere, of effortless floating ascension.
Watching this sequence, this image, makes me dream of the music that could accompany it.
Not just Hans Zimmer's synthetic, grainy layers.
But others, more fluid and airy, more minimal and subliminal...
But perhaps silence is the best soundtrack.
Silence, the music of dreams of flight and levitation...
John Cage during his 1966 concert at the opening of the National Arts Foundation in Washington, D.C.
"Most people who believe that I'm interested in chance don't realize that I use chance as a discipline — they think I use it — I don't know — as a way of giving up making choices. But my choices consist in choosing what questions to ask...
If I ask the I Ching a question as though it were a book of wisdom, which it is, I generally say, "What do you have to say about this?" and then I just listen to what it says and see if some bells ring or not"
John Cage, quoted by Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats. John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists, The Penguin Press, 2012, p. 213.
I’m looking to connect with filmmakers or visual and video artists creating experimental or conceptual short films — works that challenge form and perception. My aim is to create immersive audiovisual pieces where sound and image interact as equal elements, shaping mood and meaning together.
This is a creative and non-commercial initiative, focused on exploration, dialogue, and artistic process.
If your visual practice moves through atmosphere, concept, abstraction, or emotional resonance, I’d love to hear from you.
contact: DM or mail: wittman.christian [@] gmail.com
"Until that time, my music had been based on the traditional idea that you had to say something. The charts gave me my first indication of the possibility of saying nothing"
John Cage
"(These elaborate sound charts) resemble checkerboards laid out with combinations of sounds. In composing, Cage makes "moves" by drawing lines — diagonals, horizontals, verticals — on the chart to determine which sound comes next"
Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists, Penguin Books, 2013, p. 168.
"The need to change my music was evident to me earlier in my life. I had been taught, as most people are, that music is in effect the expression of an individual's ego — "self-expression" is what I have been taught. But then, when I saw that everyone was expressing himself differently and using a different way of composing, I deduced that we were in a Tower of Babel situation because no one was understanding anybody else; for instance, I wrote a sad piece and people hearing it laughed. It was clearly pointless to continue in that way, so I determined to stop writing music until I found a better reason than "self-expression" for it"
John Cage, quoted in: Kay Larson, Where the Heart Beats: John Cage, Zen Buddhism, and the Inner Life of Artists, Penguin Books, 2013, p. 119-120
One last question about Paul Haslinger: how did you meet him and what was your collaboration like? It seems that you currently have a project with him?
We met Paul in March 1986 during the two Tangerine Dream concerts at the Olympia, organized by Serge Leroy. Paul returned to Paris a few days later, and we met him again thanks to mutual friends. We had the opportunity to play him Cités analogues and discuss our musical activities. That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship that has lasted for decades, as it continues to this day. Our collaboration took many forms: we played two concerts together (in Paris and London), and Paul participated in five of our albums, either for occasional edits on our mixes or for direct creative input on certain tracks. It is thanks to Paul that we were sponsored by Atari at one point and signed by Hearts of Space/Fathom. Paul also recorded Jon Hassell's contribution to one of the tracks on Bleue comme une orange in his studio in Los Angeles. Paul has given us so much, both technically and artistically, and we have wonderful memories of rehearsals and composing in the studio, as well as the two concerts we gave together, not to mention the convivial moments in Paris and Los Angeles...
We had been discussing a reboot of our musical collaboration for some time. I took the initiative to get things going again in April of this year, and we started working remotely, exchanging audio tracks. Almost immediately, we found a common musical language, both minimalist and sophisticated, combining our expertise and personalities, and exploring directions that we had both ventured into. A first track emerged, then a second and a third, which Paul refined and improved in successive mixes, and whose direction we consolidated through exchanges of feedback and ideas.
Draft cover of the forthcoming album (SOOND label)
We named this album Mallarmé, in reference to the famous 19th-century poet who paved the way for modern poetry through his creative deconstruction of the French language and the typographical space of the handwritten and printed page. The three long pieces on the album are based on slowness, space, and the gradual metamorphosis of sounds and textures. Mallarmé is a project that opens up a listening space that is both minimalist and abstract, ambient yet quite contemporary. IMHO, its is a very beautiful album…
Our album will be released by SOOND in the first quarter of 2026 (CD and digital), a label specializing in classical, contemporary, and electroacoustic music, from Johannes Brahms to Philip Glass, from Gesualdo to Bruno Letort.
We have also agreed with Paul to continue this collaboration, in a format different from Lightwave, but which may involve Christoph Harbonnier in future projects, recordings, and live performances.
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