WHY START A NEW MUSIC LABEL? AND WHAT IS A LABEL?

 

Why start a new music label? And what is a label?

The definition that immediately comes to mind is that a label is an organization that produces and markets music. It can also be defined as a brand, serving to build audience loyalty. It is typically run by one or more people responsible for day-to-day management, marketing, distribution, and, of course, artistic direction—both musical and visual. But a label also consists of the musicians—bands or solo artists—under contract with it, who entrust the label with the production and release of an album.

There was a time when the landscape was relatively simple: there were the “majors”—Universal Music, Sony, Warner—and the independents, sometimes affiliated with a major for distribution, such as ECM.

Today, we’re witnessing an explosion of “net labels” or “boutique labels”—more or less formal structures, often highly specialized in a particular niche, even a specific musical niche—that frequently compensate for their small-scale, artisanal nature with added artistic value, for example in terms of design and packaging.

These new-generation independent labels operate on Bandcamp and sometimes also on download and streaming platforms. They may release music exclusively in digital format, but sometimes also in physical form, such as CDs and vinyl.

So why create a new label like NOION?

Our primary concern is autonomy and (almost) total freedom to define an artistic policy that reflects who we are.

NOION is a roadmap focused on the future and a creative horizon, rather than merely a place for archiving and preservation. The label invites us to build a long-term project and to establish a creative and innovative platform—one that is centered on a strong musical identity while remaining open to possible evolutions and shifts, driven by technological innovations, our new musical concepts, and the serendipity of encounters and projects.

NOION is built around the concept of “Deep Listening”: a tribute to the pioneering work of Pauline Oliveros and the artists who collaborated with her, particularly on the New Albion label.

We thus stand in opposition to consumable, disposable music and to the superficial, continuous streaming of sanitized playlists.

NOION aims to offer music to be listened to, not merely heard.

The label will focus on depth and slowness, inviting the listener to engage in a reflective and dreamlike immersion.

Our albums will be “open works,” in Umberto Eco’s sense—without instructions, without a prescribed use, but open to the unpredictable adventures of listening.

This will be the standard for our upcoming productions.

NOION: a label, a path, a horizon.

HOW ARE WE LISTENING TO MUSIC?

An interesting paper by Marion Dupont in the French newspaper "Le Monde" (20 June 2026, online): "Les pouvoirs de la musique, ou comment nous sommes devenus les chefs d'orchestre des bandes-son de nos vies".

 I summarize it below, in English.

 

 Link 

Marion Dupont examines how music listening has evolved from a largely collective cultural practice into a highly individualized activity closely linked to emotional regulation and self-management. Although music is one of the most widespread cultural activities today—more common than reading or video gaming—it is rarely discussed in depth despite its growing influence on everyday life.

Today, music accompanies people almost constantly: when waking up, working, exercising, commuting, relaxing, or falling asleep. Thanks to smartphones, streaming platforms, and portable devices, individuals can instantly select a soundtrack that matches or shapes their mood. Statistics from the French Ministry of Culture illustrate this transformation: while only 9% of French people listened to music daily in 1973, the figure has risen to 57% today. Among young adults, music consumption is nearly universal.

The article draws heavily on the work of American sociologist and musicologist Tia DeNora, particularly her influential book Music in Everyday Life (2000). Rather than asking what music means, DeNora investigated what people do with music in their daily lives. Through interviews with middle-class women, she discovered that music serves numerous practical functions: it helps people wake up, relax, focus, prepare for social events, cope with unpleasant situations, remember the past, or process emotions such as grief.

According to DeNora, these diverse uses are based on a shared belief that music possesses transformative power. People do not simply listen to music for entertainment; they actively use it to influence their emotions, perceptions, memories, and even their identities. She therefore describes music listening as a “technology of the self,” borrowing a concept from philosopher Michel Foucault. In this sense, music becomes a tool through which individuals shape their behavior, emotions, and sense of self in order to navigate modern life.

Several scholars expanded on DeNora’s ideas. Israeli sociologist Ori Schwarz argues that music functions both as a way of designing one’s environment and of shaping one’s inner emotional life. Whether accompanying a meal, a workout, household chores, or intimate moments, music is increasingly used to create desired atmospheres and emotional states.

The article emphasizes that this transformation has been closely linked to technological developments. Before the nineteenth century, listening to music generally required either performing it oneself or attending a specific venue such as an opera house, church, or concert hall. The invention of recording technologies, including the phonograph and gramophone, allowed music to enter private homes and be replayed repeatedly. This changed the listening experience by separating music from the circumstances of its original performance.

However, music remained a largely social activity for much of the twentieth century. Records were expensive, and listening often took place in family settings or communal spaces. A major shift occurred in 1979 with the introduction of Sony’s Walkman. By allowing individuals to listen privately through headphones, the Walkman created what researcher Michael Bull called a “sonic cocoon.” Music became portable, personal, and detached from specific locations, enabling listeners to construct unique soundtracks for everyday experiences.

The transition to digital music further accelerated this trend. File-sharing platforms such as Napster, Kazaa, and eMule gave users unprecedented access to vast musical libraries, while MP3 players and Apple’s iPod made it easier to organize personalized playlists. As a result, people increasingly curated their own emotional and aesthetic environments.

 

 

The article also connects these developments to broader digital culture. Contemporary users often build extensive collections of music, images, and videos designed to evoke specific moods. This tendency reflects the rise of “vibes” and “aesthetics” in online culture, where individuals consciously create emotional atmospheres through carefully selected media. According to art historian Valentina Tanni, this practice is part of a wider culture of self-optimization. Just as people track their sleep, calories, or productivity, they use music to regulate concentration, relaxation, and emotional well-being.

Yet this desire for control may reveal deeper anxieties. Tanni argues that the pursuit of emotional optimization is partly a response to social insecurity, economic instability, environmental concerns, and political uncertainty. Music offers what sociologist Raphaël Nowak calls “ontological security”: a reassuring sense of continuity and identity in an unpredictable world.

At the same time, control over musical experiences is increasingly shifting from listeners to digital platforms. Streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer, and Apple Music have transformed moods into marketable categories, offering playlists for relaxation, concentration, sadness, or exercise. Recommendation algorithms now analyze users’ habits, locations, and routines in order to anticipate what they might want to hear. As a result, music consumption is becoming less centered on artistic preferences and more focused on functional uses.

Nevertheless, the article concludes on a nuanced note. While platforms attempt to predict and influence listening behavior, human beings remain fundamentally unpredictable. People are not fully transparent to themselves, nor can algorithms completely understand their emotions or desires. Despite growing technological mediation, listeners still retain the capacity to seek novelty, change their habits, and be surprised by unexpected musical experiences. Music therefore remains a space where personal freedom, social influences, technological systems, and individual creativity continue to interact in complex ways.

 

 Bibliography

Tia DeNora, Music in Everyday Life
, Cambridge University Press, 2000.
 

Esteban Buch, Playlist. Musique et sexualité, 
Paris, MF (éditions), 2022.
 
Martin Kaltenecker (dir.), L’Écoute. De l’Antiquité au XIXe siècle
 Paris, MF / Philharmonie de Paris, 2024. 

Valentina Tanni, Vibes Lore Core. Esthétique de l’évasion numérique, 
Paris, Audimat, 2025.
 
Juliette Volcler, L’Orchestration du quotidien. Design sonore et écoute au XXIe siècle
, Paris, La Découverte, 2022.

 

DEEP LISTENING

 

This concept is paradoxical. We intuitively imagine listening as a form of attention that unfolds over time, horizontally, in a diachronic manner. Depth introduces the notion of space—a layering of levels starting from the surface. Deep listening, therefore, goes beyond simply following the unfolding of a sound stream to delve beneath its surface. Is there a limit to deep listening, or can we always go deeper? And what exactly do we hear when we go beneath the surface of sounds?

I believe that deep listening is first and foremost a psychological and perceptual phenomenon: a particular mode of auditory concentration, in which one focuses on the sound, here and now, gradually abstracting from the entire context and everything that might distract. It engages the listener’s imagination and memory and involves immersion in the flow of sound.

Deep listening is not a passive reception, but a process of constructing and objectifying the sound stimulus in its vibrational materiality—in its details, its pulsations, its own spatiality, its harmonic expansions, and its quasi-organic unfolding.

From this perspective, it can be applied to various types of music—a jazz quintet, a piano sonata, a Bach cantata, an opera aria, an Indian raga, or, of course, an experimental or electronic piece.

Deep listening is also, first and foremost, the listening of the musician(s) themselves, at the very moment they are performing their music. It is at that very moment, in fact, that they give the music its depth, its sonic stratigraphy, and its momentum. There would thus be “deep composing” and “deep performing,” which may share certain characteristic traits: allowing sounds to diffuse through space, streamlining the composition to focus on the essential, and introducing a sense of profound necessity into the unfolding of the music. This also involves choosing a slower pace and spatializing the music through the natural reverberation of the performance venue or electronic sound processing.

Deep listening is, of course, distinct from superficial listening, where music is merely background noise to which one pays attention—at best—only intermittently. Such music is interchangeable and can serve a utilitarian function, like Spotify playlists. Music intended for deep listening is heard for its own sake, in its singularity and uniqueness. It absorbs the listener, just as the listener immerses themselves in it.

 

THE END OF MUSIC? THIS IS THE REIGN OF GHOST MUSICIANS...

 

 

The music industry has weathered the decline of physical formats and the era of piracy, but the current crisis is unprecedented: the collapse of the “generation layer.” Suno, a generative AI platform, has decoupled music production from human talent. With $300 million in annual recurring revenue and 2 million subscribers, users are generating an astonishing 7 million songs daily—equivalent to Spotify’s entire catalog every two weeks. Producing polished music now requires only a laptop and a modest subscription, and the quality is increasingly impressive.

Monetizing Infinite Content
Suno’s $2.45 billion valuation followed $250 million in venture capital funding. The platform treats music as a pure commodity: anyone with a basic subscription can compile tracks and sell them online. One independent user made $8,500 in six months by simply selling AI-generated music packs. However, as output approaches infinity, the value of each song declines toward zero.

AI Pop Stars Are Here
Record labels are signing AI-generated acts, while streaming services fill playlists with fictional artists. Telisha Jones created Xania Monet, an R&B and gospel act, entirely with Suno, securing a $3 million record deal without appearing on camera. Human artists, such as Kehlani, express alarm at AI displacing real musicians, noting that AI tailors content using extensive data on listener preferences, including replicating human voices. Ghost artists on Spotify and TikTok, like Blow Records, accrue millions of streams and earn substantial royalties from passive listening alone.

Fraud and Criminal Exploitation
The democratization of AI-generated music has also fueled a dark economy. Streaming royalties are vulnerable because platforms distribute revenue based on play counts. Michael Smith, using AI to generate hundreds of thousands of tracks and a bot network, streamed them billions of times across major platforms, defrauding the system of over $8 million. Authorities note that while the content and listeners were fake, the financial losses were very real. This highlights systemic vulnerabilities in the digital music ecosystem.

Electronic Dance Music Under Siege
Generative AI is transforming electronic dance music (EDM) by replacing human ghost producers. EDM’s reliance on structured beats and synthesized sounds makes it especially susceptible. Suno has updated its platform to function as a digital audio workstation, enabling precise beat alignment for club tracks. Digital retailers like Beatport and Bandcamp are imposing bans on fully AI-generated music to protect human artistry, but enforcement remains challenging. As synthetic tracks flood the market, EDM culture is shifting its focus to live performance and community-based value, emphasizing human presence over digital perfection.

SOUNDSCAPES AND SILENCE (PIERRE SCHAEFFER)

 

 "I live in a world that is always there for me, and this world is as much about sound as it is about touch and sight. I move through an “atmosphere” as I would through a landscape. The deepest silence is still a soundscape like any other, against which the sound of my breath and the beating of my heart stand out with an unusual solemnity. We can glimpse how strange a world suddenly deprived of this dimension would be to us through a technical glitch, when a film’s soundtrack is abruptly interrupted, or in certain dreams. We recall Baudelaire’s dream, and his “moving wonders” over which “hovered—a terrible novelty—everything for the eye, nothing for the ear—a sense of eternity.” As if the ceaseless murmur that permeates even our sleep were merging with the sense of our own duration."

 

 "Je vis dans un monde qui ne cesse pas d’être là pour moi, et ce monde est sonore aussi bien que tactile et visuel. Je me déplace dans une “ambiance” comme dans un paysage. Le silence le plus profond est encore un fond sonore comme un autre, sur lequel se détachent alors, avec une solennité inhabituelle, le bruit de mon souffle et celui de mon coeur. Quelle serait pour nous l’étrangeté d’un monde subitement privé de cette dimension, nous pouvons l’entrevoir à la faveur d’un incident technique, lorsque la bande sonore d’un film est brutalement interrompue, ou dans certains rêves. On se souvient de celui de Baudelaire, et de ses “mouvantes merveilles” sur lesquelles “planait — terrible nouveauté — tout pour l’oeil, rien pour l’oreille — un sentiment d’éternité”. Comme si la rumeur continuelle qui imprègne jusqu’à notre sommeil se confondait avec le sentiment de notre propre durée."

Pierre Schaeffer, Traité des objets musicaux, p. 104-105.

[READING] KANDINSKY - LA MUSIQUE DES COULEURS

 

Published by the Centre Pompidou and the Philharmonie de Paris, Kandinsky: La musique des couleurs (2025) invites readers into the luminous world where painting and music converge. Wassily Kandinsky, a pioneer of abstraction, believed that colors could sing and shapes could resonate like chords. His canvases are not mere visual records—they are symphonies, orchestrated with rhythm, harmony, and emotional intensity.

This volume explores the delicate, sometimes elusive dialogue between sound and sight in Kandinsky’s work. Through essays, archival materials, and vibrant illustrations, it traces his quest to render music visible and to make color feel like a note, a phrase, or a melody. Kandinsky’s experiments with synesthesia—the blending of sensory experiences—challenge the boundaries of perception, asking viewers not only to see but to feel, to “hear” the vibrancy of a crimson triangle or the resonance of a swirling blue circle.

Kandinsky’s interest in music was not merely theoretical. He maintained close relationships with many musicians of his time, including composers associated with the avant-garde in Germany and Russia. He corresponded with Arnold Schoenberg and was inspired by the developments of atonal and expressionist music, seeing in their compositions a parallel to his own quest for abstraction. He also collaborated with performers and ensembles, attending concerts that shaped his understanding of rhythm, dynamics, and the emotional power of sound, which he sought to transpose onto the canvas. These interactions illustrate the lively cross-pollination between visual art and music in the early twentieth century, where ideas moved fluidly across mediums.

The book situates these visual-musical experiments within the intellectual and artistic currents of early twentieth-century modernism, highlighting the spiritual, philosophical, and experimental impulses that guided Kandinsky. It considers the tension at the heart of his practice: the attempt to translate the temporal, intangible art of music into the spatial, material art of painting. In doing so, Kandinsky created works that do not merely illustrate sound but embody it, offering an experience that unfolds over time, much like a composition performed or a melody remembered.

Kandinsky: La musique des couleurs is both an analytical study and a sensory journey. It encourages readers to engage with painting as one engages with music: to listen with the eyes, to feel the rhythm of forms, and to discover the emotional resonance of colors. In this way, the book captures the radical ambition of Kandinsky’s vision—an art that speaks across the senses, bridging the seen and the heard, and inviting a new way of experiencing the world.

[READING] MICHAEL NYMAN - EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC. CAGE AND BEYOND

 

Michael Nyman’s Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond is widely recognized as one of the most insightful examinations of post-war avant-garde music, particularly the transformative work of John Cage and his influence on contemporary composition. First published in 1974, the book has since become a cornerstone text for understanding experimental music in the second half of the 20th century.

Nyman’s approach is both scholarly and accessible. He situates Cage’s innovations—such as indeterminacy, prepared piano, and the use of silence—not merely as eccentricities, but as part of a broader philosophical and aesthetic movement that challenged the very definition of music. Nyman extends the discussion to other composers who followed Cage, demonstrating how experimental practices evolved into what he terms “the beyond,” encompassing works that are conceptually radical, structurally unconventional, or aesthetically challenging.

One of the book’s greatest strengths is its historical and theoretical context. Nyman traces the lineage of experimental music from early 20th-century modernism through Cage, Morton Feldman, Earle Brown, and others, highlighting the intellectual currents—Zen philosophy, abstract expressionism, and post-structuralist thought—that informed their work. This contextualization helps readers understand experimental music not as isolated oddities, but as part of a vibrant, ongoing dialogue in the arts.

Nyman’s writing is both rigorous and engaging. He blends analytical precision with anecdotal insights, making complex ideas about sound, time, and structure comprehensible without oversimplifying. The book’s inclusion of musical examples, score excerpts, and illustrations further aids comprehension, making it valuable not only to theorists and scholars but also to composers and performers seeking practical insight into experimental techniques.

Critically, some readers might find Nyman’s perspective somewhat Eurocentric and Cage-focused; while he acknowledges other streams of experimental practice, the emphasis remains heavily on the American avant-garde. Additionally, certain passages assume a baseline familiarity with music theory, which could be challenging for casual readers. Yet, these are minor quibbles in a work that remains remarkably lucid for a text of its scholarly ambition.

In conclusion, Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond is an essential read for anyone interested in 20th-century music, avant-garde composition, or the philosophical underpinnings of sound as art. Nyman not only illuminates Cage’s revolutionary contributions but also maps the ongoing exploration of musical boundaries, making this book both a historical record and a guide to thinking about music in radically new ways.

 

CYCLICAL DREAMS INTERVIEW (1)

 

CYCLICAL DREAMS INTERVIEW (2)

 

CYCLICAL DREAMS INTERVIEW (3)

 

BRIAN ENO: VISUAL MUSIC

Brian Eno: Visual Music

Steve Dietz, Brian Dillon, Roy Ascott, and William R. Wright 

Chronicle Books, 2013.

 

Eno's Philosophy of Visual Music

Brian Eno has long been fascinated by how different senses influence each other. His approach to "visual music" is rooted in the belief that sound and vision can be integrated to create an environment that goes beyond the sum of its parts. Rather than having distinct boundaries between music and visual art, Eno's work blurs these lines, positioning the two mediums as complementary rather than separate.

Eno often talks about ambient music as an experience that can be absorbed passively or actively—much like visual art. In the same way that a painting can be experienced in a gallery, ambient music can be experienced in the background or as an immersive focal point. However, Eno doesn’t believe that the two forms should merely coexist in a superficial way. Instead, he strives to create dynamic relationships between the two, where sound and imagery respond to one another and the viewer/listener, often in real-time.

 

 

 Crystals, Cologne, West Germany, 1985 © Brian Eno

Generative Art and Systems Thinking

A significant part of Eno's work involves generative art, which uses algorithms, rules, and systems to create works that are never fixed but always in flux. This aligns with his belief that both music and visuals should be more fluid and open-ended, creating a constant state of change. Many of Eno's visual works, such as 77 Million Paintings and Generative Music, are built on these principles.

In 77 Million Paintings, for example, Eno uses a computer program to generate an infinite number of visual combinations. These combinations are not predetermined; rather, they evolve and transform continuously. The viewer may encounter a different visual display each time they interact with the piece, ensuring that no two experiences are the same. Similarly, Eno’s generative music works like Music for Airports were designed to be continually shifting, allowing listeners to engage with them on their own terms.

                   

                                Pictures of Venice (details). Venice, Italy, 1985 © Brian Eno

 

Synesthetic Experiences

In Visual Music, Eno discusses the idea of "synesthetic" experiences in detail—where one sense (such as sound) triggers sensations in another (such as sight). For Eno, music is not merely auditory—it creates visual associations, textures, and colors in the mind of the listener. His use of ambient music is often designed to evoke a sense of space, time, and atmosphere, all of which can have visual counterparts. This idea of synesthesia is essential to understanding how Eno blends visual art and music.

In 77 Million Paintings, the generative visuals are designed to reflect the mood and tone of Eno’s music, but they’re not bound to it in a literal way. Instead of matching specific sounds to specific images (e.g., a red shape for a loud note), the visuals interact with the music’s general qualities—its pacing, its patterns, its subtleties. This creates a type of emotional resonance between the two media. The music is not simply a soundtrack for the visuals; both the sound and the image work together to create a more immersive, holistic experience.

Quiet Club [Living Room], San Francisco, California, USA, 1988  © Brian Eno
 

Interactive Installations

Another important aspect of Eno's work that bridges visual art and music is his use of interactive installations. Many of his works allow viewers to engage with the art, often altering it in some way as they interact with it. This kind of participation is a key aspect of his visual music philosophy. For example, in Generative Music installations, visitors can manipulate various parameters, influencing the way both the visuals and the sound evolve. In doing so, the boundary between the observer and the artwork blurs—the viewer/listener becomes an active creator in the artistic experience.

In the context of Visual Music, this interactivity is essential to the idea that music and visuals are in constant conversation. Both the audience’s actions and the generative nature of the artwork influence how the work unfolds, creating a feedback loop that makes the work feel alive. Eno’s philosophy is not just about viewing or listening—it's about experiencing art in a dynamic, interactive way.

 

Influence of Technology on Music and Visuals

Eno’s embrace of technology plays a pivotal role in his ability to unite music and visual art. The tools he uses—whether it's computer algorithms, generative software, or visual synthesizers—allow him to create works that are flexible, dynamic, and unpredictable. These technological elements open up possibilities for both music and visuals to evolve continuously.

In Visual Music, the technological aspect is often highlighted as a bridge between the two art forms. The use of generative technology means that Eno’s visuals are not merely static images designed to complement pre-composed music. Instead, both the visuals and the music emerge and evolve together, in real-time, as part of an interactive system. This creates a feeling of immersion where the viewer is surrounded by a living, breathing artwork that changes with time and interaction.

 

 

Quiet Club [Living Room], San Francisco, California, USA, 1988 © Brian Eno 

Musical and Visual Cross-Pollination in Eno's Works

Throughout his career, Eno has made it clear that music and visual art should not be treated as independent entities. His approach to visual music is not about simply layering a visual component over music, but about creating cross-pollination between the two. Music doesn’t just set the mood for the visuals; it interacts with them and vice versa.

One of the more striking examples of this cross-pollination is his album Music for Films, where Eno explores creating soundtracks for imaginary movies. The sounds themselves evoke cinematic imagery, often taking on a quality that feels like a soundtrack to a film that doesn’t exist. This approach aligns with his visual work, where the audience is invited to create their own narrative or interpretation as they experience the piece. Eno’s philosophy, then, is that both sound and sight should be suggestive and open-ended, leaving space for the audience to fill in the blanks.

 77 Million Paintings, Sydney, Australia, 2009  © Brian Eno 

A Unified Experience

In Brian Eno: Visual Music, the marriage of sound and image is not just an aesthetic choice, but a deep philosophical exploration. Eno's work challenges the traditional separation between the auditory and the visual, proposing instead that these two realms can combine to create a richer, more complex experience. His philosophy is one of fluidity and change, where both music and visuals are alive, evolving, and reactive. Through generative art and interactive installations, Eno creates environments where the boundaries between the two media disappear, allowing them to merge into a unified whole.

This integration of sound and vision is the heart of Visual Music. It invites the viewer/listener into a space where perception itself is flexible, allowing for a more holistic engagement with the artwork. Whether through ambient music, generative visuals, or immersive installations, Eno’s work continues to redefine the possibilities of what art can be in the 21st century—an evolving, interactive experience that encourages deeper engagement with both sound and sight.

 

THE QUEST OF A MUSICAL PHILOSOPHER'S STONE?

 

I am currently testing GRM Tools (better late than never...). After the IRCAM plugins, I am exploring the infinite transformations and hybridizations of my own recordings in unexpected and exciting directions.

I like the idea of working with sound material in a chain of processing and remodeling, which sculpts its form, volume, motor skills, temporality, and space.

 

These tools can be used with an in-depth knowledge of sound physics. 

 

I prefer to approach them more intuitively, a bit like a painter working with colors or a sculptor working with raw stone or wood.

 

That's how I compose my music.

 

But once the tracks are recorded and mixed, they become the starting point for new sound experiments.

 

Years of practicing with hardware, analog, modular, and digital synthesizers, then virtual instruments, as well as years of listening to classical, contemporary, and electronic music, have trained a bit my ear.

 

By experimenting with today's new tools as a tinkerer rather than an engineer, I hope one day to hear the unheard and perhaps find the musical philosopher's stone that every musician dreams of!

WHEN A GREAT CREATOR DIES...

 

"When a great creator dies, history—including his own history—holds its breath, looks around, and wonders what to do, as if waiting for new directives or new insights that might suddenly shine through the opaque shell of habit. History waits to gather and summarize the significant episodes of creative power; it waits for a new autopsy of the organs and expressive organism of the great creator. Or it waits for a lazy and unexpected silence to be broken.

 

When, moreover, the great creator who dies has recently crossed the border into a new territory rich in meaning, because it has been long and organically prepared, then we wonder, distraught, what else this man might have discovered and offered us if he had lived longer. (...)."

 

Luciano Berio (about Stravinsky)

 

This beautiful text reminds me of the musicians who have inspired me so much over the years, and whose creative work I would love to see continue forever....

 

To name but a few, I am thinking of Klaus Schulze, Hector Zazou, Harold Budd, Jon Hassell, Morton Feldman, John Cage and so many others who are gone ...

 

THE ARTIST'S TASK...

 

 

"The artist's task is not limited to finding solutions to existing problems, but rather—as the works prove—to constantly inventing new problems."

Luciano Berio — Electronic Music (in: Ecrits sur la Musique, Philharmonie de Paris, 2025, p. 284)

 

 

Reading Luciano Berio's writings on music is a fascinating experience... They are so insightful, both in their reflection on his work and in their more general theoretical propositions.... 

This definition of the musician's task is so relevant, both in terms of his creative process and its effects on listeners.

Yes, all creation, whether musical, pictorial, literary, or intellectual, is measured by the problems it creates, not those it solves...

To create is to think, using the tools of the intellect, the senses, the body, and the imagination...

 

MUSIC STREAMING

 

Luminate’s 2025 annual report highlights a paradox at the heart of the global music industry. While the volume of music available on streaming platforms has reached unprecedented levels, actual listening remains extremely concentrated.

By the end of 2025, 253 million tracks were available worldwide — an increase of nearly 38 million songs in one year, or 106,000 new uploads per day. At first glance, this growth suggests creativity and diversity, but the data tells a far less optimistic story.

Nearly half of all tracks (120.5 million) received fewer than ten streams in 2025. Overall, 73% of songs had fewer than 100 listens, and 88% failed to reach 1,000 streams annually. In practice, almost nine out of ten tracks have no real economic impact in the streaming ecosystem.

Listening is also highly concentrated. Just 0.2% of tracks accounted for almost half of all global streams, confirming that streaming strongly favors a tiny elite of songs and artists. While major record labels represent only a small share of releases, revenue remains heavily skewed toward a limited number of hits.

The report warns that this imbalance may worsen as AI-generated music accelerates the flood of new releases. As the number of tracks continues to grow faster than audience attention, the industry faces a critical question: can hundreds of millions of songs be fairly compensated when listening remains focused on a tiny minority?

Ultimately, the music market appears trapped in excessive growth, raising concerns not only about artist remuneration but also about the cultural value of music itself.

(summary of a post by Radio FG: link  )  

[READING] BERIO ON THE IDEA OF MUSICAL THEATER

Opéra National de Paris. Pelléas et Mélisande – Elena Tsallagova (Mélisande), Stéphane Degout (Pelléas), Stage set up by Bob Wilson, 2012  © Charles duprat

 

"We are close to an idea of musical theater that is a theater of the mind and memory, perhaps a virtual theater, a theater that invites our attention to constantly oscillate between listening and looking and back again, a theater that constructively challenges those who watch and those who listen, that arouses the desire to listen with one's eyes and look with one's ears. Eyes that can listen to different things from the same perspective and ears that may see only one thing, but from different perspectives. In other words, we are thinking of a theater made intelligible not only by the things we see and hear, but also by the desire to penetrate, discover, and confuse the different times of sounds and images.

Seeing music. The need to seek a link between image and sound comes from far away, from an ancient synesthetic vision of the world. Exodus 20:18: “And all the people saw the thunder and lightning and the sound of the shofar.”

The link between light and sound, between light and speech, is common to almost all stories of origins, primordial events, myths, and world consciousness, and music often seems to become the most powerful intermediary between the eye and the ear, between the moving and extreme points of a space that must always be explored and questioned anew. A space that sometimes seems to lead us to the threshold of a mystery. A space that we also try, with the tools of theater, to explore and stubbornly secularize, but which, in fact, always contains an intangible and perhaps sacred core."

Luciano Berio, "Des sons et des images (1995)"
 

MUSIC IN THE CELLAR

Is music like a fine wine that needs to be left to mature and age in a cellar before being consumed?

The “draft” section of my Bandcamp page is a bit like that cellar, where I organize my music by album projects, letting my compositions rest and withstand the test of multiple listens before crossing the threshold of publication...

It's also a kind of personal journal, where I archive moments of life and creativity that can span several months.

But there's also another reason, inherent to the type of music I compose. It's not written in the traditional sense, meaning I can't archive sheet music. The archive is the recording itself, the stereo tracks resulting from the final mix. I also keep an archive of all the recording sessions on my DAW, the stems of the different tracks, with the presets of the instruments and processes used and the mixing settings. This allows me to revisit and correct a recording months after the original session.

On the other hand, in electronic, ambient, or electroacoustic music, there is the central element of timbres and processes for spatialization and sound transformation. While melodic and harmonic elements can be notated using traditional musical notation, they are not the most important aspects of the music I create: the very nature of the sounds, their morphology, their movement in space, and their hybridization in the mix are the basis of my compositions. 

There are undoubtedly notation and visualization systems that could capture the specificities of electronic music, but to what extent can the singularity of the sounds that make up the compositions be reproduced, and to what extent can a score of this type be played by other performers?

Some electronic music, predominantly melodic, can be written and performed by other musicians or even adapted for acoustic instrumentalists: Jean-Michel Jarre and Vangelis come to mind in particular. But I find it difficult to conclude that electronic works can become “repertoire works.” A special case is when the composer or group reinterprets their works in concert, with a greater or lesser degree of fidelity to the original work. Backing tapes and computer playback can preserve the essence of the original work. Kraftwerk and Jarre today, but also Tangerine Dream, rely on these devices, which can also take the form of control over pre-programmed loops and sequences triggered live.

But to return to my question, how can music based on drones, atonal layers, and movements in binaural space be visualized on a score?

 

MODES OF EXISTENCE OF MUSIC?

 

 

"This means that as listeners, we must first ask ourselves why and how a musical work exists, rather than simply rushing to judge whether it is good or bad, beautiful or ugly."

 (Luciano Berio, Forme, 1960) 

 

I find this idea particularly interesting... Whether listening “passively” or simply for aesthetic reasons, according to the criteria of taste prevailing in a given society, Berio invites us to question music: both the question and the answer must be constructed by the listener. But ultimately, it is a matter of understanding why and how a musical work was composed and is being performed here and now. What makes it possible, even necessary? What space does it create? What temporality? 

More than sixty years later, Bruno Latour's work, An inquiry into modes of existence: an anthropology of the moderns (Harvard University Press, 2013), perhaps invites us to revisit the question posed by Berio...

What are the modes of existence of music? And what new art of listening can this question give rise to? 

 

 

"MUSIC IS NOT JUST MADE UP OF NOTES"

 

              

                                          “Gesti” for piano, Dick Higgins - 1979

"Music is not just made up of notes. A musical form is above all an obvious fact, a testimony—it is not a state of mind to be perceived, nor a pattern to be analyzed, nor even a fixed system of communication through which people exchange sounds and meanings just as they exchange goods, based on a conventional economic system. This means that as listeners, we must first ask ourselves why and how a musical work exists, rather than simply rushing to judge whether it is good or bad, beautiful or ugly. Categorical judgments such as good or bad, beautiful or ugly—typical of rationalist thinking in tonal aesthetics—no longer allow us to understand why and how a composer today works on audible forms and musical action..."

Luciano Berio, Forme (1960)

in: Ecrits sur la Musique, édition établie par Angela Ida de Benedictis, Cité de la Musique - Philharmonie de Paris, 2025, p. 59-60. 

 

 

READINGS

I am discovering the superb publications of the Philharmonie de Paris, which offer French translations of theoretical and autobiographical texts by some of the greatest names in 20th-century music...

These reflective texts shed light on the creative process and its evolution over the course of a lifetime, while addressing fundamental questions: what is music? What is modernity? How can we innovate within the tradition of Western music? 

These three books open up a vast field of reflection, and reading them together will undoubtedly create multiple echoes and resonances, given how different Schönberg, Berio, and Reich are.

These composers, along with others from the contemporary scene, are among my favorites to listen to: their music appeals to the ear as much as to the mind, and broadens my own creative universe, at my modest level as a self-taught musician.

And their writings help me to put into words what I feel intuitively, but confusedly, about the mysterious power of sounds, silence, harmony and dissonance, rhythm, time and space, which contribute to creating what we call “music”...