SÉBASTIEN
ROUX "SONGS" (12K1036)
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BAD
ALCHEMY (DE)
Der
Pariser Sounddesigner, zuletzt mit Greg Davis und Arden zu hören,
entwarf hier ein Septett minimalistischer "Songs",
die ihr Quellmaterial im Tilel verraten - "The Prepared
Piano Song"... "Metallophone..." "Classical
Guitar..." "...Cello..."... "harp And Contrabass..."....
"Guitar And Drums...."... Der am IRCAM arbeitende
Elektroakustiker füttert damit seinen Laptop, zumindest
ist seine ganze Klangwelt laptoptypisch über den Kamm geschoren,
und ordnet dabei die spezifischen Differenzen einem ideal granularer
und splittrig blinkender Finessen unter. Dazwischen liegen die
Quellen immer wieder klanglich offen, als an die Oberfläche
dringende akustische Splitter eines Cellopizzikatos etwa oder
angezupften Hargen-oder Gitarrensaiten. Dabei ist Roux, trotz
einer Vorliebe für Pastelltöne, kein ambienter Lüftlmaler,
Er dekonstruiert und knickt und bricht den Klangverlauf in pointillistische
Steno - und Morsekürzel ohne Bedeutung. Ganz 12k - einschlägig,
das Ganze, und als Gratwanderung zwischen Elektro und Akustic,
Entspannung und Irritation, durchaus mit eigenem idiosynkratischem
Charme.
BLOW UP (IT)
Titolo
fuorviante per la nuova prova solista del francese Sébastien
Roux, dopo l'avventura col super-gruppo Arden (BU #89). E già,
perché di canzoni qui non c'è ombra o forse, a
ben ascoltare, c'è solo quella, ricordi fuori fuoco di
canzoni-che-potrebbero-essere, parvenze di melodia singolarmente
gestite da strumenti per lo più acustici (chitarra classica,
batteria, violoncello, metallofono, arpa, piano preparato etc.),
ma poi sempre intontite, fratturate da tagliente processing
digitale, ambientazioni austere che pure a volta riescono a
sorprendere per grazia e levità. Chi sa come sarebbe
il trattamento applicato a VERE canzoniSą (7) Nicola Catalano
BOOMKAT (UK)
The
first gem of the year on 12k comes to us from French sound artist
Sebastien Roux, who you may have heard recently helping out
Greg Davis on their Carpark-released collaboration album or
releasing on New York label Apestaartje. This has set him in
good stead for Songs, which one might say is his most completely
realized collection of work. ‘Songs’ is an odd way
to label this curious record though, as the tracks are as far
from songs as one could get. Each piece here is composed using
a specific instrument or instruments (The Cello Song, The Guitar
and Drums Song etc) yet instead of playing on the obvious, Roux
extracts unheard detail from his tools, amplifying intricacies
and processing the recorded sound to create something quite
startling. Probably closest to the work of the Musique Concrete
movement; Roux obviously has his roots in French experimentalism
(Studio GRM, Luc Ferrari, Pierre Schaeffer et al) and even works
at the IRCAM institute, where so much of this music was originally
conceived. Luckily though, Roux does manage to inject a contemporary
feel to the tracks, much as Keith Fullerton Whitman did on his
last album ‘Playthroughs’. The tracks are steeped
in history but remain listenable, interesting and most importantly
- beautiful.
DE:BUG
(DE)
Sebastien
Roux is einer der talentiertesten Produzenten im Post-AmbientSektor.
Sein Solo-Album Pillow auf Appestaartje und das Arden Band Album
"Conceal" sind stilprägend für einen Sound,
der das Instrument mit der aktuellen experimentellen Soundbearbeitungs-Praxis
fusioniert hat. Sein neues Album "Songs" ist in dieser
Hinsicht etwas mehr Experiment, etwas mehr Musique Concrete
als Folk und Pop. Die Sounds klimpern, zirpen und klirren auf
der Klang-Oberfläche vor sich hin, swischenzeitlich schwebt
ein Klavier-Akkord in das erratische Gewebe, dann wieder knackt,
rauscht und granuliert Soundmasse. Das ist sicherlich gut und
clever konstruiert. Schade nur, dass dieser emotionale Impact
den seine anderen Arbeiten immer hatten, verloren geht. EDs
ist als stände man vor einem gläsernen, schimmernden,
in der Statik gewagten Gebäude ohne Fenster und Türen.
Musik muss man bewohnen können. Das funktioniert hier nur
bedingt.
E/I
(US)
The
prepared instrument conjures intricacies that may seem somewhat
off the point of altering an instrument to begin with. The lengths
to which John Cage strove to notate the type, weight and position
of every nut, bolt or shim he stuck into a piano demonstrates
little more than an ultra-conventional obsession at the repertory’s
Most Hallowed Altar of Repeatability, a notion then not yet
retired by the profusion of recording devices available to pretty
well anyone and everyone. Where Mr. Roux stands on this point—of
the arbitrary as opposed to the overly documented random—is
difficult to know. Lacking the at times overbearing formality
and durations of some of Cage’s work, Roux tunes the pieces
to a still more contemporary ear by favoring the steady state
and keeping things short. In fact, the whole CD is really of
EP length with seven pieces amounting to a little over 30 minutes.
Usually restricted to solo instruments, these pieces all meditate
on the unintended sounds of their instruments (The Guitar Song;
The Prepared Piano Song; The Cello Song, and so on). The respect
for silence and for the fundamental notion that the sounds an
instrument is capable of are not wholly determined by the designer
of that instrument reaches back to the obvious reference to
Cage and all the way forward to the ears-wide-open catalog that
comprised Fred Frith’s Guitar Solos. The music here is
a wonderful reminder of that simple, wide-eyed love of surprise
and discovery. - K. LEIMER
GO
MAG (ES)
Sebastien
Roux es ese pequeño alquimista parisino que nos regaló
el fascinante "Pillow" hace un par de años,
un tipo que maneja guitarras procesadas con la misma solvencia
que Tim Hecker o Fennesz pero que, lejos de quedarse atrapado
en un ambient especular (y muy bonito, añado), prefiere
investigar nuevos caminos en cada una de sus grabaciones. En
"Songs", cada una de las piezas está compuesta
a partir de un determinado instrumento (están "The
Classical Guitar Song," "The prepared piano song,"
"The cello song" y hasta "The metallophone song"),
pero prestando atencion antes a su naturaleza acustica, al modo
en el que producen el sonido, que a una interpretacion tradicional.
De ese modo, aparecen quejidos insospechados, zumbidos y notas
raras, material que Roux aisla y recorta, para luego insertarlo
en el interior de una electronica intrincada y minimalista,
en la que conviven ráfagas de glitches, lechosos colchones
ambientales y melodias casi inaudibles. Un discurso que navega
por un fascinante horizonte, en el que se confunden la musica
concreta, la electrónica experimental y el ambient diamantino
y que, a pesar de lo complejo de sus herramientas, resulta muy
sencillo escuchar y disfrutar. El pequeño bastardo lo
ha vuelto a conseguir.
LOST
AT SEA (US)
Whether
meant as an ironic statement or as a means of throwing a curve
ball at the musical world, sound artist Sébastien Roux?s
decision to call his latest album Songs will certainly have
provoked widespread head-scratching. Anyone familiar with Roux?s
music, either documented by his acclaimed debut Pillow or his
collaboration work with Greg Davis, will be fully aware that
it starkly juxtaposes any conventional or commonly-assumed concept
of ?song?-structure, and his latest selection of cuts doesn?t
pull any punches
As is synonymous with the 12k label?s minimalist electronics,
Sebastien Roux?s approach is highly conceptual. His songtitles
provide a basic insight to what he sets out to achieve. Essentially,
Songs captures a series of instrument recordings, which, by
way of process, are realized under completely new and unidentifiable
guises. "The Prepared Piano Song," for example, is
sourced from a basic piano piece and digitally manipulated to
the point that most traces of raw piano are suppressed. The
manipulation and rearrangement allows the track to take on a
new form, and once interspersed with prolonged moments of silence,
its structure makes for a challenging listen
"The Metallophone Song No. 1" continues along a similar
path as Roux builds tension between sound and silence whilst
sporadically shuddering the piece?s flow with static glitches.
The array of sounds he uses to give life to Songs is quite diverse:
Roux will readily introduce a string of microscopic tics and
skitters, which might precipitate a high-pitched sine wave,
or be flattened by an avalanche of white noise, and all the
while the raw material in which the track takes root will shimmer
away in the background. Songs sparks with its variety of sounds.
"The Harp and Contrabass Song," which clocks in at
over nine minutes, represents Songs? most minimal track, sounding
at times like a chorus of buzzing hard-drives, and for the most
part eclipsing any evidence of harp or contrabass recordings.
In terms of melody, it?s also perhaps Roux?s gloomiest track
as towards its close the few remaining fragments of recording
gather and spiral off in a discordant siren of high frequencies.
While as an entire episode Songs may come across as impenetrable,
its beauty can be truly realized in bite-sized chunks. The trick
is to treat each of Roux?s buzzes, whirrs and digital squeaks
individually ? they retain remarkable clarity and inject Songs?
flow with a virtually unchallenged sense of irrationality. With
Songs, Sebastien Roux emphasizes the boundless potential inherent
in the processing of sounds, regardless of the nature or source,
and the subtle beauty that may surface from them.
PARIS
TRANSATLANTIC (FR)
Since the last
outing by Sébastien Roux that came my way, Pillow on
Apestaartje, though outstandingly well recorded and beautifully
produced, was just a leeeetle on the soft side, I was delighted
to discover that this collection of seven pieces, recorded in
and taking advantage of Parisian state-of-the-art studios including
La Muse en Circuit and IRCAM, is more angular, intricate, fragmented
and rewarding. The dreamy Day-Glo blue room chillout waves of
bliss have been replaced by the kind of crunchy complexity even
Boulez might grudgingly enjoy, though he'd probably turn up
his nose at the occasional passages of gentle tonality from
Roux's source instruments (prepared piano, metallophone, guitar,
cello, harp and bass). There's a lot to get your teeth into
here: each "song" is packed with myriad pristine shards
and flecks of sound, exquisitely crafted and carefully sequenced
and panned, but despite the complexity there's not the slightest
hint of Mego-style overload / overkill. Roux hasn't lost his
feel for harmonic coherence either: check out how "The
Cello Song" circles around E flat, and how the instrumental
sounds and their electronic transformations are dovetailed with
the kind of clockmaker precision Stravinsky admired in Ravel.
A superb piece of work - Roux's best so far by far - definitely
worth seeking out.-DW
ROCKERILLA
(IT)
Sebastien Roux mette da parte
le velleità strumentali in favore di un esperimento che
concettualmente indaga sulle simmetrie sonore. Lo strumento
è uno specchio in cui una nota si riflette rigenerandosi
in uno stato opposto, creando un magico gioco di ripetizioni.
Roux disamina il metallofono, la chitarra classica, il violoncello,
l'arpa, il pianoforte, assemblando le mutazioni naturali di
un suono che riflette se stesso con gli artifici dell'ultra
tecnologioa. Ci si perde in questi viaggi, in queste elucubrazioni:
ascoltare un disco come "Songs" significa alienarsi
dalla realtà, chiudere gli occhi per sognare un viaggio
in un'altra galassia, perdere il senso della dimensione in un'esperienza
acustica decisamente fuori dal comune. Difficile.
VITAL
WEEKLY (NL)
Sebastien Roux shouldn't be
unknown by now, for his various releases on 12K and Apestaartje,
and 'Songs' is the follow up to 'Pillow', which wasn't reviewed
in Vital Weekly. The title implies that we are dealing with
songs here, and of course there are eight tracks on the CD,
which may be songs. But if we take songs literally, as 'songs'
than Sebastien Roux doesn't play traditional songs. He plays
guitar, and processes that playing through his laptop. Sometimes
his guitar sounds like a guitar, but most of the time, it doesn't.
It crackles, hums, sounds like an organ, like chirping insects,
or like a spacecraft landing in the ocean. All eight 'songs'
are collages of sound, sometimes a small portion of it forms
what could be song, but sometimes the collage as such seems
like a merely random set of sounds. Sometimes they don't seem
to add up to a real song. Although it's all beautifully produced,
soundwise, I have some problems with the overall result. Maybe
my expectations are just wrong, based upon the title, but some
of the pieces sound a bit too haphazard for me. The real challenge
lies, I think in making them into real songs. Next time, perhaps...
(FdW)
BARCODE
(US)
Songs is a rather irritating
album of fragmented acoustic and sampled sounds. Often the sound
levels are so low you have to turn the volume to hear anything,
then it's suddenly so loud you frighten yourself and have to
turn it back down again. Maybe Roux is just trying to wake us
up.
Described as "beautifully rendered", via words such
as "melodic", "gentle" and "exotic",
I found Songs anything but. Here we have a highly experimental
album, musically comparable to what you might find accompanying
an art exhibition; sometimes you get a partial piano or acoustic
refrain that you think will lead somehwere, but Roux's pretentious
sonic juxtapositions fail to communicate a sense of tangible
musical enlightenment. Whilst I'm certainly not adverse to some
fine cut and paste electronic-style musique concrete myself,
Roux makes the chronic error of putting sound ahead of source
- so you might just as well be listening to your drains being
rinsed.
I must admit I did fear the worst when reading the press release,
which described Roux's work as "mathematics, symmetry (and
assymetry) and organized randomness" - it was the moment
that I was unquestionably sure that I was heading for 45-minutes
of self-absorbed catastrophy. 1.9/10
