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‘cabinet of curios’

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6 artists to choose from:  L’OCELLE MARE + ALEXIS DEGRENIER + JULIEN DESPREZ + GASPAR CLAUS (solo) + WASSIM HALAL + WILL GUTHRIE

Experimental forms? Perhaps. Quirky, or contemplative? Absolutely. Sometimes all it takes to reshape your world is a solo, or a single instrument.

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• L’OCELLE MARE (fr)

Thomas Bonvalet is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist. Having commenced his vocation as a bassist he cemented it as a guitarist at the heart of the band Cheval de Frise (1998-2004). Progressively straying from the guitar, he began to integrate foot tapping and various wind and percussive instruments into his performance, incorporating mechanical elements and stray amped-up objects into the soundscape.

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Thomas Bonvalet : six-string bass banjo, mechanical metronome, tuning forks, claves, foot and hand clappers, mini-amplifiers, amplifiers, subwoofer, microphones, small mixer, bells, mouth organ fragments, concertina, componiums, “stringin it”, audio ducker, drumheads, spring motors.

•  ALEXIS DEGRENIER (fr)

After studying classical percussion and composition with as many written forms as elements from the oral tradition, Alexis Degrenier composed his first pieces for chamber orchestra at the age of 16.

His fascination for the work of Helmut Lachenmann, with whom he attended a writing course seminar, led him to focus on sound spaces, oblique listening and parasitic elements. At the same time, he evolves through his research and collaborations, actively involved in the practice of traditional music, first through the study of North Indian and Pakistani music, to devote himself today to drone music, particularly next to the members of La Nòvia.

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Alexis Degrenier : composition, percussion, hurdy-gurdy, drone box

• JULIEN DESPREZ (fr)

When you only hear it without seeing it, it’s not easy to say that Julien Desprez plays electric guitar. This young French musician plays with a salutary spontaneity and many internal and external modifications on his instrument. Playing with his microphones, transforming the sound with pedals; it seems like his hands are tap-dancing on the chords. His live tracks sound like cut-up sounds, close to the so-called glitch music; reminding us of the Quebec techno producer Akufen alias Marc Leclair, with whom he shares the taste of jolting: his body almost dances when he plays and the relationship he has with his guitar can evoke the actions of a magician who would have hypnotised a tiger trainer.

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Julien Desprez : guitar, effects pedals, lights, installation

• GASPAR CLAUS (solo) (fr)

Gaspar Claus is a tireless explorer who ceaselessly re-configures the world map of music. A cross-country cellist who might be described as the heretic heir of the exemplary Tom Cora, with whom he shares the blend of popular and erudite styles and a taste for melody and racket alike, along with an all-encompassing appetite, he allows his unkempt technique to serve the pure joy of being alive, ever open to surprises, with a humanist drive which contaminates his countless collaborations (from Jim O’Rourke to Sufjan Stevens and Rone to Angélique Ionatos). Improvised music (alongside Keiji Haino or Serge Teyssot-Gay), contemporary music (with Bryce Dessner), flamenco (Pedro Soler and Ines Bacan) or pop (Barbara Carlotti, Peter Von Poehl), everything that comes into his hands transforms into an exercise in the intensification of one’s tastes and the bursting of boundaries.

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Gaspar Claus : cello, concert in the dark

• WASSIM HALAL (fr)

Few people explore Darbuka from this angle, and Wassim Halal likes to clear the land. This solo starts from a simple question: how to create the same emotions as a lament (Ataba) with a Darbuka. What tricks can be found in the narration, the timbres, the references to create a singular emotion.
To this question is also added the exploration of the universe of rhythm, powerful and repetitive. A solo that finds its way by decompartmentalizing identities, working between acoustic and amplified borders.

→ Video ‘Yodling on Samai | سماعي ثقيل’

→ Video ‘Kalam Oum Samah’