Forges - Forges (2023) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

This repertoire emerges from a reflection on the value of limitations in art as a tool of renouncement and transgression. On the concrete use of limitations in composing as a device of emancipation — tracing the frame from which to extract ourselves —. Here, written music is apprehended like a block of raw matter which each member is called upon to peel, bend or weld onto another.

Conceived as a sonic-mobile installation, the pieces develops in weaving modules orbiting one another. Rhythmical structures or abstract textures are used alternatively to outline and distort intense soundscapes. Each section is thought of as a small toy-box of concepts where players are led to pick and choose thus altering the overall direction of the performance.

It is the idea of a music aware of itself, that ‘thinks itself’, where action and spontaneity prevail; where repetitions and thematic reappearances seem almost contingent and do not constitute an aesthetic requirement but more that of a déjà vu or a faint remembrance altered by time and interaction. If reoccurring, each motive has change, attained a new form, nothing in them entirely dissolve within the performance energy, but nothing ever remains the same.

For me, composing this way is like creating ‘protagonists’, with complex and versatile personalities, capable of mood swings and sensitive to their surroundings, but without constraining them to a predetermined narrative; to let events and decor form according to the musician’s imagination. It’s building a platform where the limits determined by the compositions become a playground to celebrate the ‘spirit of adventure’ and immediacy.

Having worked with Samuel and Rémi in a constellation of different ensembles and genres for the past 9 years, this new trio focuses on the acoustic and percussive nature of our instruments. Putting the emphasis on ambiguity and mystery within the considerable amount of structure the music is based on, I try and provide the players as well as the material itself with total autonomy within the pieces, thus, allowing the border between ‘text’ (as in notated or premeditated music) and ‘initiative’ (as in interpretation and improvisation) to be reduced to a dashed-line or even, at times, eradicated.

Tracklist:
01. George Best Bar
02. Anafauna
03. Jeu
04. Debris I
05. Gla
06. George Best Bar (Reprise)
07. Debris II
08. Jeu - Postlude
09. Debris III
10. Ymbow


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