[REVIEW] AMBIENT BLOG on "Mallarmé" and "Borges"

 

 

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Noion is a brand new record label founded by Paul Haslinger (Tangerine Dream, Lightwave) and Christian Wittman (Lightwave). The label aims to redefine ‘listening with atmospheric minimalism, sound exploration, and genre-defying music – from ambient to contemporary classical and drone.’

To put that statement into practice, they’re releasing two albums with their own music. The albums are inspired by two influential writers from the 19th and 20th centuries: Stéphane Mallarmé and Jorge Luis Borges.

PAUL HASLINGER & CHRISTIAN WITTMAN – BORGES

“One of the most influential writers of the 20th century, Jorge Luis Borges was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator regarded as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. Renowned for his profound and poetic explorations of reality, time, and the nature of language, his works often delve into philosophical puzzles, blending fiction with metaphysical inquiries, and have had a major influence on the magical realist movement in 20th century Latin American literature.”

I must admit I am not familiar with Borges’ work. Perhaps I should be … and the music on the album definitely is a great invitation to do so.
The six tracks – ranging from 5 to 9 minutes, explore Borges’ ‘themes of illusion, memory, fiction, and the infinite […] The music ‘mirrors the complexity of his literary universe.With its subliminal lines and expansive atmospheric textures, the music unfolds like a labyrinth – layered, intricate, and filled with subtle events.

The music on this album is – indeed – genre-defying. It is ambient, cinematic, electro-acoustic, but it also has contemporary-classical influences. It is not strictly ‘electronic’ also ‘acoustic’ music.

PAUL HASLINGER & CHRISTIAN WITTMAN – MALLARMÉ

From the liner notes I learn that Stéphane Mallarmé’s 1897 poem ‘Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard’ (A throw of the dice will never abolish chance) was radical in its use of free verse and unusual typographic layout.

Haslinger and Wittman ‘capture the random, abstract essence of his text through an immersive, unhurried pace, where sounds and motifs reverberate in recurring patterns. We embraced a minimalist simplicity to better isolate sonic and harmonic elements – much like Mallarmé visually separates words or clusters of words, treating them as distinct sonic, visual, and semantic entities.’

A noticeable difference to the music on Borges is the length of the tracks. The tracks are much longer, from 17 to 20 minutes, and the instrumentation is somewhat more abstract.
“Interweaving minimalism and experimentation, impressionism and abstraction, the work invites the listener into a realm of tonal poetry.”

Illiterate as I am, I must admit (again! Shame on me!!) that I don’t know the work of the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé. So I cannot judge the way the music represents the spirit of the work of there writers like someone who is familiar with their work.
It probably helps to extra appreciate these albums. But I myself am living proof that it is nót necessary to know their work to thoroughly enjoy this music.

Borges and Mallermé are two very impressive albums to start a new label with. As a label, Noion wants to ‘evolve into a platform for like-minded musicians, creating a space to explore new creative territories at the intersection of contemporary music, minimalism, ambient, and classical traditions.’

Based on this label kickoff, I’m sure that this will not be the last time releases from this label will be recommended here on Ambientblog.

 

 

INTERVIEW OF PAUL HASLINGER. FROM TANGERINE DREAM TO THE SONIC GEOGRAPHIES OF noion MUSIC (2)

 

[Interview by Jacopo Vigezzi, originally published in Prog Rock Journal, July 10; republished with permission.  Link ] 

 

 The label manifesto cites Boulez, Cage, and Eno. Which of these thinkers most closely mirrors your current belief that music is an “ethical category” rather than just an aesthetic one?
 

In my mind, Cage is the one closest to our approach, in his appreciation of chance within defined frames.
Common to all three is an interest in discovery, and the drivers of those moments of new insight are not always musical. They often involve philosophical and ethical components, as well as synergies between Western and Eastern thought.
All three also shared a deep appreciation of architecture, because the experience of space is so central to both their definition—and our definition—of musical discovery.


The inaugural tracks were recorded between Nina Studio in Paris and your Large Array in Los Angeles. What kind of technical and poetic dialogue exists between these two very different geographic poles?


In 2026, geographical distance has become quite relative. Thanks to file-sharing and video-conferencing, we have meetings every week, and our conversations go from technical discussions all the way to creative-aesthetic exchanges. We’ve both been obsessed with music for a long time, and beyond that, with books, philosophy, history – and the most fun conversations are always those that can go from the most minute details, to the most universal aspects of creation. It’s our definition of having fun. Lately we've been hearing about attempts to revive supersonic civilian flight, so I haven't entirely given up hope that one day I might once again meet Christian for a coffee in Paris!


In “Mallarmé,” you were inspired by a radical 1897 poem known for its fragmented typography. How did you translate those visual "silences" and the "abolition of chance" into a fluid sonic environment?


Mallarmé saw this poem as the opening of a new space, and in so many ways he demonstrated principles that became central to avant-garde music in the 20th century: non-hierarchical structures, free association, and the breaking of barriers. It is all contained within this text. You could also relate this to the founding principles of musique concrète.

This “field of experience” that Mallarmé was after is also very much reflected in our compositional approach. We typically start with a few musical elements that create a specific atmosphere in line with the poem. This becomes the basis from which we develop a catalogue of ideas in the form of small musical lines, themes, and gestures.

Eventually, we begin reducing and shaping those accumulated ideas into a sequence and balance that achieves the greatest clarity and impact. This is a critical step in the creative arc of these pieces: by reducing elements, we try to get to and unveil the essence of the piece.


Moving to “Borges,” the music unfolds like a labyrinth. How does the sound reflect Jorge Luis Borges’ specific fascinations with infinity, memory, and the unstable nature of reality?


Borges often takes scientific principles to extremes, and then, by distorting them, drives them into the absurd. Labyrinths are patterns that at one point become unpredictable, confusing. In music, we thought that patterns and sequences represent the starting point of order. And their deconstruction, fragmentation and modulation necessarily lead to an aleatoric structure. This, of course, brings us back to the open space of exploration. There is an obsessive quality in Borges, which we also tried to mirror in certain looping aspects of the music. There are always winks and a nice dose of humor in his descriptions of the absurd. Likewise, the music keeps a lighter tone, allowing for some of the comic qualities to shine through. 

INTERVIEW OF CHRISTIAN WITTMAN. FROM LIGHTWAVE TO ATMOSPHERIC MINIMALISM (3)

 

 [Interview by Jacopo Vigezzi, originally published in Prog Rock Journal, July 10; republished with permission.  Link ] 

 

In “Borges,” the music is described as unfolding like a “labyrinth.” As a composer, how do you build a sonic structure that feels “infinite” and “layered” without losing the listener in the complexity?

— That’s an interesting question… When we look at a painting or a piece of architecture, when we read a text, when we listen to music, do we focus on the details and the complexity of their interconnections, or do we have a more holistic perception? It depends on our modes of perception—whether analytical or synthetic. Borges’ compositions aim to reflect the dizzying dimension of his writings: we did indeed have labyrinths in mind, with contours, detours, corridors, and staircases that make one lose one’s sense of space and time. We also thought of mirror effects—reflexivity is important in his texts—causing sounds to bounce and deepening perspectives, creating sonic illusions. I thought of Escher’s architecture but also of Jurgis Baltrusaitis’s beautiful writings on mirrors, anamorphoses, and the fantastic.

Needless to say, we did not seek to illustrate Borges any more than Mallarmé, but rather to offer a form of free interpretation that approaches their specific poetic worlds. We used sound rather than words or images to attempt a form of immersion in the quintessence of their writings.

The concept of "tonal poetry" is central to these releases. Do you consider yourself a musician who uses machines, or a poet who uses sound as his primary alphabet?

— I do not consider myself a technician or an engineer, nor even a musician in the academic sense, but rather a tinkerer, in the sense that Claude Lévi-Strauss gave to the term: my approach is defined less by calculation and planning, or technical mastery of machines, than by intuition, the subversion of instruction manuals, unorthodox experimentation in programming and assembling sounds, and unforeseen and sometimes provoked accidents. So yes, I do like the image of the poet who writes with sounds: I do indeed conceive of my music as a form of writing—not narrative, but descriptive and introspective: it describes landscapes, possible worlds that may be internal and psychological, but also have shapes, colors, materials, smells, and soundscapes. I also conceive of this “tonal poetry” in the form of gestures and movements, that is, as painting and sculpture of sounds, where I work with forms, surfaces, volumes, lines and curves, and colors. In other words, machines and technology are not ends in themselves; I am not a synthesizer fetishist, but I consider that I have a palette of tools—brushes, sculptor’s chisels, basic materials—from which I can freely draw for a given recording session. The mix of tools, their occasional chaining, their feedback, and their incompatibility sometimes are the secrets of my sound and musical craft...

Lightwave was famous for recording in unique locations, from the Gasometer in Oberhausen to the Choranche caves. Do you feel that the band will eventually return to these “site-specific” recordings, or is the focus now purely on the “inner world” of the studio?

— Yes, we’ve put on some extraordinary concerts, providing the soundtrack for sound installations in exceptional venues, where we were assisted, in particular, by our friend Michel Geiss, who was a close collaborator of Jean-Michel Jarre during the early part of his career. In Oberhausen, we provided the sound for an art installation designed by Anne and Patrick Poirier. They had created a miniature city—an industrial site crisscrossed by railroad tracks—which spectators could view through telescopes set up around the perimeter. Every movement of a telescope triggered a track of our music, creating an interactive soundscape that constantly renewed itself from the hundreds of tracks we had recorded—tracks designed to be mixed in every possible combination (thanks, Brian Eno, for the concept lol!).  In Choranche, we provided sound for underground galleries with soundscapes that followed the audience’s progress from speaker to speaker—guided by speleologists—and blended with the roar of the waterfalls… And upon their return to the large chamber of the underground lake, we treated them to a live concert, with all our instruments set up among stalactites and stalagmites… A completely crazy project, if ever there was one… It was Michel Geiss again who oversaw the entire technical production. And after several days, torrential rains over the Vercors mountains caused the underground rivers to swell; the water level rose, threatening to submerge the cave’s only exit, so the audience had to be evacuated urgently, and all our equipment had to be raised in a panic to avoid getting soaked…!

Since Oberhausen and Choranche, a lot of water has flowed under the bridge, so to speak… For noion, in 2026, technologies have obviously evolved, and so have concepts… Paul and I are thinking about possible performances based on our music. Traditional concerts, with laptops and screen projections, no longer make much sense to us. So we need to move toward installations or immersive productions, in collaboration with multimedia artists and architects, in venues other than traditional concert halls. We’ve made preliminary contacts with creative partners. Now we need to find festivals or institutions likely to take on our projects… We’re not short on ideas; we want to break away from the concert format in the traditional sense… 

[REVIEW] MALLARMÉ AND BORGES [STAR'S END]

 

"There is a lot of unresolved tension throughout the two releases inaugurating their Noion Music label. From start to finish Mallarmé (65:15) and Borges (41:53) are engaged in developing a new kind of tonality - a mode of expression that would absorb tradition without becoming trapped by it. Every track flickers with a very different kind of life. Dispatching swirling sonic symbols with meticulous abandon notes slow from a spatial compression into polite stasis.

Filling a listening space with music as fluid occupies a vessel, or smoke might circulate through a room, every new moment of Mallarmé and Borges is quickened by a fleeting darkness - alive and free. Varying in density, lightness and atmosphere these albums offer an experience akin to roaming the boundless corridors of a dreaming mind. We imagine encountering breathing strings, dislocated piano chords, a distant dissonant orchestra, and maybe even our own brains slowly reacting - as thoughts go off course in a concerted current of harmony and timbre. 

Musical lines collide, collude and combine in a ramble of melody, a flight of resonance, a search for consonance. With chords moving in contrary motion the mind is lead through a shadowy realm, concluding then in light. Haslinger & Wittman develop a poetic idea, suggest a scene, conjure a mood. Even as its accord of sound is opposed by dissonance we hear a unity in the arrangement and the message this collaboration is attempting to convey.  

Ambient Chamber Music could certainly do with more sophisticated takes on the genre like this one. With the shadows of history all around, our imaginative duo clears the stage for an aurally adventurous future."

Please tune in to the 07.19.26 broadcast of STAR'S END for music from Mallarmé & Borges the recent releases by Paul Haslinger & Christian Wittman, and more... Thanks! 

 Chuck van Zyl 

 Link 

REVIEW OF NOION MUSIC FIRST RELEASES!

 

"It is fascinating to listen to Christian Wittman and Paul Haslinger and to discover the sonic cartographies they shape, imbuing them with electroacoustic spheres and architectures. These sometimes move toward an environmental dimension, and at other times toward a more suggestive evocation, without directly incorporating the meditative elements traditionally associated with such approaches.

 
We are confronted with sketches, with explorations of acoustic relationships and sound processing that could be perceived as a minimal anamorphosis of musique concrète. These suspended works evoke less external landscapes than inner introspections, cinematic atmospheres, spaces of emotion, and intimate resonance.

 
Christian Wittman and Paul Haslinger have a complete mastery of this territory, where listening becomes a sensitive and immersive experience.

 
One is reminded of On Land by Brian Eno, though without its organic quality. A musical abstraction that is nevertheless not deconstructed, best experienced in semi-darkness, allowing the listener to perceive its smallest interstices."

 Thierry Moreau (Design, Digital creation) 

RELEASE OF "BORGES" AND "MALLARMÉ" !

 Dear friends,

I am delighted to announce the release of “Mallarmé” and “Borges,” two albums created in collaboration with Paul Haslinger, on our brand new label, noion music.

Born from nearly four decades of creative dialogue between the two of us, noion is a home for works that explore literature, memory, atmosphere, and deep listening. 

Inspired by the worlds of Stéphane Mallarmé and Jorge Luis Borges, these inaugural releases offer the first glimpse into a broader artistic vision—one where sound becomes a field of experience and listening an act of discovery.

This is only the beginning. Alongside future collaborations, noion will continue to explore new creative territories at the intersection of ambient, contemporary classical, minimalism, and sound art, inviting listeners into immersive sonic worlds shaped by curiosity, reflection, and imagination.

Our music is online on Bandcamp and on all the streaming / download platforms (Spotify, Deezer, Amazon, Qobuz etc etc….)

 

 Listen to "Mallarmé" and "Borges" in HD!   Link  

FICTIONS - THE SOUND OF LABYRINTHS

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Une publication partagée par @noionmusic

NEW SINGLE "FICTIONS" FROM THE FORTHCOMING ALBUM "BORGES"