Gavin Hellyer
Fascinating results emanating out of a mutual desire from these musicians to utilise a massive church organ to their own creative ends. Very fine improvisations c/w completely original and unexpected instrumentation combine to present a fascinating and remarkable release.
Favorite track: PANCRACE 2LP side A.
***Best of 2017 voted by the Wire magazine, Chicago Reader & Soundohm!***
The Pancrace Project (Arden Day, Prune Bécheau, Julien Desailly, Léo Maurel & Jan Vysocky) came out of an informal residency in Alsace (Dangolsheim) curated by the musician and inventor Léo Maurel.
Though no determined concept preceded the session a mutual desire to occupy Saint-Pancrace Church and investigate its 1848 organ in a profane manner seemed to bond all the players thus allowing them to do a « tentative d’épuisement » of the place over a week of improvisations and form emerging compositions. So nothing but the place became the only credo in taking possession of this charismatic environment. Like in most churches the organ stands like a Moloch or a sentinel bearing a singular relation to the place regarding its resonance and frequencies.
Hence the form of the session emerged from disrupting the traditional frontal approach to the instrument by both preparing the organ inside out and organically challenging its gregarious authority with instruments like a boîte à bourdons, a baroque violin, a pi-synth, hurgy toys, a piano paysage, feedback, Uilleann pipes, a motorised bow, Hulusi flutes and even bird call whistles… It became clear that a narrative was emerging that would soon lead to a structure. Amidst this hunter gathering of sounds one can hear layers of microtones, microrhythms, drones with elements of field recording all displayed like an ensemble.
Recorded in Saint-Pancrace church Dangolsheim by Jan Vysocky
Editing and mixing at studiocairos.com
Artwork by Julien Desailly and Léonie Harnois for the stained glass
Layout by Maja Larsson
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publishing works in the field of sound art, electroacoustic and improvisational music, featuring international artists and crossover collaborations into audiovisual, performing and installation arts....more
The real title of this album is "Carl Stone songs you can cry to." Sonali will make you dance, I guess, but then you'll start crying again after that. Paul Klee
“With Julius, he was based in repetition, but here was a spirit of openness and improvisation. His scores, if they were written out that way, were often like jazz scores. He loved multiplying instruments – four pianos, ten cellos – so there was a real feeling of the presence of the instrument, not just using an instrument in some kind of equation, as a means to an end.” ~ Mary Jane Leach
Enough said. pt
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