HASLINGER - WITTMAN. MALLARME (work in progress)

 

First published in May 1897, Stéphane Mallarmé’s poem Un coup de dés jamais n’abolira le hasard occupies a singular place in the history of European literature. By applying non-linear principles to the construction of language, Mallarmé creates a seemingly chaotic yet meticulously orchestrated topography of meaning—transforming the poem into a labyrinth of signs, where reading becomes both constrained and expansive.

This radical gesture, rooted in the subversion of normative literary conventions and in the quest of "l'art pour l'art", is amplified by the dismantling of poetic syntax, narrative linearity, and fixed meaning—a rupture that redefines the very act of reading.

It is this spirit of spatial and semantic disruption that inspired the musical project by Paul Haslinger and Christian Wittman. Drawing on the temporal elasticity and multidimensionality of listening, they explore the fleeting nature of sonic perception.

Fluid and organically evolving, Mallarmé unfolds across three movements. Interweaving minimalism and experimentation, impressionism and abstraction, the work invites the listener into a realm of tonal poetry—a world of sound in perpetual reflection.

Projects...

 

Dear friends, 

 

Some news about my musical projects...

 

I have two albums scheduled for release between the beginning of April and the beginning of May.

 

The first, "Akousmata", will be released on Driftworks, the web label created by my friend Andrew Heath, as a CD in two limited editions, and as a digital download.

 

The second, "Views of Mind", has been accepted by Paul at Shimmering Moods Records, again with a limited-edition CD release. 

 

A third album project, "The Northwest Passage", is nearing completion and has been accepted by a no less prestigious label for release in late 2025 or early 2026. 

 

Entrusting my music to specialized labels, driven by a true artistic vision, with their network of contacts and fans, is a way for an independent musician like me to widen the circulation of my music, to make it live and breathe, to make it resonate with that of the artists featured on these labels: whoever is alike comes together, in the plural of sensibilities and inspirations, musical skills and personal histories...

I am infinitely grateful to these courageous label managers, guided by their love of music and their artistic vision, against all odds.

 

At the same time, I'll be continuing to add new musical projects to my Bandcamp page.

 

I've got several on the go.

 

I'm determined to pursue my path, my vision and the logic of my creative journey.

 

I will not bend to the injunctions of the guardians of the temple of well-tempered ambient who dismiss my music from playlists because it's too much of this, and not enough of that.

 

I'm trying, at my modest level, to chart a course for a musician of integrity and without compromise.

 

The recognition of a small circle of connoisseurs is more important to me than the statistics of Spotify's algorithmic circus, where my tracks are lost in the flux of fast listening...

 

Last but not least: deep thanks to all the podcasts and radio programmers, blogs and magazines reviewers who support my creative journey... You are so precious!

Learning Seaboard: Immersion in new sonic oceans...

 

 

Last night, a dizzying immersion in a new multidimensional musical universe...

 

First experiments with my new Seaboard Rise keyboard from ROLI : sculpting soundscapes in five dimensions and rediscovering the infinite possibilities of the hand and finger on a tactile surface...

 

A new approach to gestures on a musical keyboard: caress, percussion, climb, cross, sink, fly...

 

The keyboard becomes a harp, a ondes martenot, a futuristic orchestra, a modular synthesizer facade with a thousand possible settings, unfolding new worlds of sound...

 

I begin my learning curve in this new MIDI environment with a totally psychedelic immersion.

 

https://christianwittman.bandcamp.com/

https://open.spotify.com/.../artist/4q4V7ci4nsWYEoPSb09voh

 

 

Music and Words

  

Composing and recording music is for me an indispensable, essential form of personal expression... I have the impression of expressing and objectifying parts of myself that words cannot convey... There are undoubtedly many links between the music I create and the texts I may write at other times in my life...

Above all, this form of expression obeys a desire and an obviousness: to move from the writing keyboard to the musical keyboard is essential at certain times, often in the evening, in that transition time between day and night, between light and darkness, when sounds and silence take on new reliefs...

Basically, my compositions and the albums I build, often in parallel, are like the pages of a diary...

I write down states of mind, ideas, thoughts, memories, projects...

I create this music first and foremost for myself, as a soundtrack to my inner films, my days and nights...

I only release it, on Bandcamp and other platforms, after careful consideration, but in the end, I don't know whether I'm publishing a musical album or a notebook of my diary... Probably a bit of both... And the attentive listener will be able to read between the sounds and notes the words I haven't been able to say...

I currently have three albums well advanced in the “draft” section of my Bandcamp page.

The first is finalized and will soon be released... “Ambient Chamber Music”... The title says it all...

The second to come, a little later, is “Views of Mind”. A little more work and reflection on the order of the tracks... Release later this summer?

I recorded “Lignes de fuite” this evening, which could in fact become the first track on the album...

CREATIVE DIARY

I've started work on a new project, which I've been dreaming of for years...

It would follow on from the Lightwave albums "Cantus Umbrarum" and "In der Unterwelt", in that it could be music for a multi-channel sound installation, combining fragments of spoken voice and an electronic soundscape.

But this project would have a particular dimension, and no doubt a different sound design, minimalist, uncluttered, experimental...

I've made a 5-minute demo, and I'm hoping for a "green light" to go ahead with this project...

I also have a collaborative project underway with a musician I admire: an interesting experiment, with unexpected creative rebounds, which forces us both to break out of our usual compositional routines and sound vocabularies to invent a common language... It's an exciting experience... The ball is in my court, and it's up to me to take the next step!

Otherwise, I'm thinking about my next record release. I've got various projects more or less finalized. I'm thinking of taking tracks from one or other of them for a very ambient and minimalist album, which I'd like to be as "translucent" as possible, slow, stretched out, contemplative, meditative, letting resonances and harmonics spread out into possible spaces...

I also ask myself questions, of course... Am I producing too much music? Am I saturating my audience? Should I make myself scarce, make myself desired and wait, at the risk of being forgotten? Or should I, on the contrary, unroll my creative thread, with coherence and integrity, like so many milestones whose very continuity makes sense? And in the end, who do we make music for? Is it an egocentric or altruistic activity? Is it a self-reflexive process, in which we strive to finally create the music we dream of listening to, but are unable to materialize? Or is it a public process, in which we address and adapt ourselves to an external audience and its expectations?

There's undoubtedly a little of all this in the deep-rooted reasons that drive me to compose, record and produce music, often on a daily basis...

Work in Progress: "Evanescence"

 

I am working on my next album project, "Evanescence".... Listening again and again to the eight tracks recorded. Correcting mixes, trying different level balances. Changing the order of the tracks: which one is the best, the most efficient? 

 

Fine tuning the tracks titles... Words matter... 

 

Should I include "Edge of Oblivion" or not, as a second or as a third track? Listening again and again, with hi-fi loudspeakers, with my headphones...

 

I love this album... I don't know if anyone else will love it...

 

I think it is a step in a musical quest that makes sense...

 

No one of my ambient albums is the same...

 

I feel I go further, deeper, elsewhere...

 

Listening again and again...

 

Where does this music come from? Where does it go?

 

Why does this music matter so much for me?

 

What am I trying to express through it?

 

Music is the mirror of a soul.

 

Of the soul of the composer.

 

Of the soul of the listener.

 

I love so much the music of "Evanescence"...

 

Works in Progress

 I use the "draft" section of my Bandcamp page for various album projects in progress, before their public release.

It's a way for me to listen, test, experiment with track order, to correct mixes, to consolidate concepts and to fix track titles.

I currently have eight albums in this transitional zone.

Four albums are completed, from my point of view, and ready for release.

Four other albums are under construction, and as my studio sessions progress, and after an initial filtering of the finalized tracks, I direct this or that track towards a particular album.

All these albums differ in concept, musical style and sound aesthetic.

In this way, I can diversify my musical work in different directions.

It's only after numerous re-listenings, corrections and retouching that I consider an album ready to be released and to go out and meet its listeners.

I listen to them over and over again, at different times of the day....

It's a bit like my secret workshop...

Reconsidering Space Music: A Work in Progress

 

I'm currently working on a new album project, The Story of the Sun, Moon, and Stars.

This album draws its inspiration and artwork from a vintage book by a woman, Agnes Giberne, under this title, published in Cincinnati in 1898.

This was the heyday of imaginative, conquering and speculative astronomy, a telescopic astronomy, driven by such great figures as Jules Vernes, Camille Flammarion, Percival Lowell...

This detour into late 19th-century astronomy frees me from the stereotypes of space music or cosmic music of the early 21st century.

In these compositions, I have sought to reconnect with a fascination for space, where science and imagination, dreams and observations intertwine, to create a new language: a language to describe celestial immensities, a visual language to represent them in the form of drawings and engravings, and of course a musical language to express the moods of an earthly observer lost in cosmic infinity via a telescope.

My music explores these infinite spaces, following the threads of sensations, thoughts, memories and feelings of an observer lost in the meanders of a cosmic reverie...

Christian Wittman · Expanding Galaxies

Impressionnism (Work in Progress)

 "Impressionism" is one of my current album projects, which is almost complete. It draws its inspiration from nineteenth-century French Impressionist painting by Manet, Monet and Van Gogh, and the particular sensory universe that accompanies it: steamy landscapes, the play of light, reflections on water, moving lights that create unexpected reliefs in a landscape.

The music is minimalist, a little abstract at times, unfolding sensitive, evolving soundscapes in an aesthetic close to classical chamber music, crossed by electronic sounds and textures.

This is a direction I intend to follow and explore in the future, blending multiple influences from French chamber music (Debussy, Satie...), the ambient music of Brian Eno and Harold Budd, and the contemporary classical movement embodied by artists such as Ólafur Arnalds, Nils Frahm, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Max Richter and Arvo Pärt...

I'm looking for a record label that might be interested in this project!

 

 

Christian Wittman · Field Of Sunflowers (Preview)