Ethereal (FR)

A new example of a record with a very strong formal device, ModularGuitarFields I-VI intends to combine echoes of a baritone guitar with the interventions of a modular synth. Carried by an artist best known as a visual artist, this desire to stick to a strict format proves to be quite coherent, especially since this new disc comes after others, entitled Drums, Various Vibrating Materials or Guitar Studies I-III , like so many attempts to articulate musical research and attachment to a very marked form and assumed as such.

Such a preamble could suggest a somewhat cerebral forty minutes, focused on sophisticated minimalism. However, the Swiss manages to infuse body and warmth into his pieces, according to the wanderings of his six-string, the slight saturations which adorn the sounds that come out, and the crackles coming from the modular synth. Even more, certain guitar tones resemble shaking bells, a way of adding another tremor, also terribly human.

Apparently largely improvised, the disc offers five long tracks (between ten and sixteen minutes) as well as a one-minute interlude, but the album unfolds in such a way that the transitions between these six tracks are almost imperceptible. The listener finds himself, rather, faced with an indistinct flow which gains in density as he plays a disc published on LP for its physical format, until the last title which chooses a form of descent, in order to leave a very captivating sound journey in a more peaceful manner.