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...

QUIET EVENINGS

(BRIAN ENO - OBLIQUE STRATEGIES)

 

I remember

those quiet evenings

the song of swallows crossing the sky

the coolness of the air

the halo of my lamp

my fingers on the keyboard

the first notes carved into the silence

my eyes closed

a dream of music awakens

 

https://christianwittman.bandcamp.com/album/twilight 

GIORGIO III

 

So, when can we expect the VST version?

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!

GIVE AWAY: FREE DOWNLOAD CODES FOR "WINDY LANDS"

 

"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)  

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To redeem here:   https://christianwittman.bandcamp.com/yum

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TIME / DURATION

 

"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.  

KEEPING THINGS MYSTERIOUS (JOHN CAGE)

"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. 

ABOUT EXPERIMENTAL (AND AMBIENT) MUSIC

"It seems now that what started as an esoteric bubble at the very edges of music had become transmuted into a mainstream"

 

 

BRIAN ENO (quoted by Michael Nyman, Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Cambridge University Press 1974/1999, p. xiii)

 

THE MUSIC OF FLIGHT AND LEVITATION

 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...