INSPIRATION (ABOUT A PHOTO OF BRIAN ENO)

 

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. 

CREATIVITY

 “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.”

Hildur Gudnadóttir 

VIEWS OF MIND

 

Dear friends,

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...” 

HEARING vs LISTENING

"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).

WE LIVE IN A WONDERFUL AGE!

 

"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!)

[Release] "Floating Indetermination (For Morton Feldman)"

 

 

 Dear friends,

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...