Tout Corps d'État

Claire Bergerault Jean-Sébastien Mariage

Jean-Sébastien — 2022-04-25T15:51:33Z

Claire Bergerault : voice, accordion
Jean-Sébastien Mariage : electric guitar

The fear that nothing will create tension will be the breeding ground for events. It is then that a tiny detail emerges, as if by an accident on a route that is nevertheless straight but tense. It will be the triggering of a fall, of vertigo, in which we will have no choice but to immerse ourselves. This dust of variation will then become immense, and will constitute the subject of the sound. This radical stretching, rather than dispersing the constituent elements of the sound, highlights others, hidden a priori, ultimately numerous, which will reveal themselves as so many surprises that the two musicians will seize as an opportunity.

Claire Bergerault - Jean-Sébastien mariage

Extrait du concert aux Instants Chavirés le 21 avril 2022

Claire Bergerault - Jean-Sébastien mariage

Extrait du concert aux Instants Chavirés le 21 avril 2022

Extrait video par JJG

Video intégrale du concert aux Instants Chavirés du 21 avril 2022

View online : Full recording of the concert at Instants Chavirés le 21 avril 2022

Kaïros

Jean-Sébastien — 2022-02-16T16:37:21Z

Gwennaëlle Roulleau : live electronics
Jean-Sébastien Mariage : electric guitar

Presentation of the project

On a proposal by Gwennaëlle attached to the vibratory dimension that governs the living and inspired by Les Furtifs by Alain Damasio, the duo proposes a dialogue between environments of sensations and emergences. The two musicians gravitate around the axis of improvisation / composition in real time. The research takes as its starting point the "fleeting" alteration of the function of sound materials, which pass lawlessly from landscape to object, from horizon to place, from persistence to punctuality. Everything escapes, and everything is there, at once. This balance, whose primordial quality is instability, derives not only from the instrumental device, but also from the posture of the musicians. The primary nature of sound is permanently questioned here. From acoustics to electronics via effects, the manipulation of acoustic objects or the reworking of the sound of the guitar and its processing by Gwennaëlle, the erratic manipulation of effects by Jean-Sébastien generates a meeting zone where each affirmation of one position can only reveal another. Between fugue and flight, the musicians echo each other, conceal, transform, bounce back. The duo brings into play the metamorphosis of the subject by playing on the memory of the listener. Sound objects are proposed, they are identifiable. Subsequently they reappear in a transformed way, they are still recognizable but they have changed form, they have eventually gone from guitar to electronics and vice versa. This gives rise to a global object which is still made up of the same sub-objects but whose form has evolved. The duo seeks to develop in their work the composition of sound objects that are made, unmade, transformed by the combination of lines of research that constitute as many ways of dealing with the subject of furtive people. The piece is seen as an epic, a succession of paintings or states. the spatialization of sound internally to the composition. Stealths are movement, displacement, mask effect. The dimension of space is fundamental and intrinsic to the subject.

The Kaïros duo toured Australia and New Zealand during the month of February 2024.

To prepare for this exceptional event, the duo was in working residency at the National Center for Musical Creation Muse en Circuit in January 2024.

February 1st : Sydney - Redfern Art Space and Concert Venue 107 Projects
From February 2 to 4 : Canberra - Festival SoudOut - duo concert and artistic encounters with Australian musicians Rhys Butler (saxophonist, Canberra), Richard Johnson (wind multi-instrumentalist , Canberra), Yichen Wang (OP-1 electronics, Canberra/China), Elizabeth Jigalin (piano, Sydney), Helen Svoboda (double bass / vocals, Narrm), Jim Denley (wind instr. , Sydney), Laurence Pike (drums and percussion, Sydney) Jodie Rottle (flautist, Brisbane), Maria Moles (drummer, Narrm), Melanie-Louise Eden (vocals / accordion, Sydney), Clayton Thomas (double bass/percussion, Sydney)
February 6 : Melbourne - Make it up club
February 8 : Hobart (Tasmanie) - Mona
February 9 : Melbourne - Jolt Arts
From February 10 to 13 : Auckland (Nouvelle-Zélande) - Aotearoa International Festival of Secret Sounds- duo concert and artistic encounters with New Zealand musicians

Co-production Tout Corps d'État / Babbel

Concert video for the Aotearoa International Festival of Secret Sounds, February 10, 2024 in Auckland, New Zealand:

Listen to the recording of the concert in Melbourne (Fitzroy) on February 9, 2024

Biographies

Gwennaëlle Roulleau is a composer, electroacoustic improviser and sound artist. Listening to the landscape or the sound body, she captures and sculpts the sound material in its physicality, transforms it to release substance, energy, emotion. She processes sounds into living organisms, always open to the risk of accident and pleasure. In an affection for the acoustic nature, she claims the electronic dimension of her instrument. Like so many subjective filters, the processing digs into and extrapolates reality, the synthesis considers other layers. His work explores the vibratory fields, audible or imperceptible by our senses, electromagnetic. She plays with improvising musicians, ventures into live performance, and creates devices that question the sound phenomenon, between real-time composition and writing, between the instrumental gesture and the device. His musical projects are presented in creative music networks, in theaters or on sites to be named.

Jean-Sébastien Mariage Guitarist improviser and composer since 1990, Jean-Sébastien Mariage develops new techniques and materials that make his instrument evolve, transcend it, open it up to sounds unexpected, to unsuspected music. He performs solo and in many free improvisation formations on the stage. international (Hubbub, ONCEIM, etc.). He is also an interpreter of contemporary composers (Elianne Radigue, Rhys Chatham, Eric Abecassis, Frederick Galiay...). He works regularly with dance, poetry, theater... (Carole Armitage, Michel Gendarme, Hop-la We Live company...). Recently, he directs his research towards the idea of the "common place", including in his music referenced objects (patterns, sounds) which he proposes as so many pivots which subliminally arouse the common memory in order to dig new articulations. sound. Attaching particular importance to transmission, he has been a regular speaker since 2015 at the Philharmonie de Paris for various workshops.

View online : Gwenaëlle Rouleau's web site

Wakatta

Jean-Sébastien — 2021-12-31T11:52:55Z

Jean-Sébastien Mariage : electric guitar
Benjamin Duboc : doublebass
Yuko Oshima : drums

Wakatta is a trio initiated by Jean-Sébastien Mariage (electric guitar) for which he surrounds himself with Yuko Oshima (drums) and Benjamin Duboc (double bass).

The aesthetic takes as its starting point the New York jazz of the end of the last century and brings it to the musical challenges of today.

Dynamic, simple and repetitive themes are driven by a big drumset and a big double bass plugged into an Ampeg amp.

Starting from simple melodic themes proposed by Jean-Sébastien, the double bass and drums parts are built together during the working sessions.

This being established, like a momentum, a leap into the void, the improvisation, built by the interweaving of the three voices, can begin, without knowing where it will lead us. After an indefinite time, the closure will generally be done by returning to the theme. A classic and effective form therefore, re-visited today by modern melodies by their repetitive aspect, non-harmonies, and heady rhythms which intersect, disappear, explode the framework of the meter. Colors that form a picture that seems familiar but immediately emerges as an emergency of the present.

The music remains melodic, rhythmic and tense. The decision-making of each of the three musicians can only be done alone because the time to think is already too long. It emerges from it a common jubilation produced by a referenced statement always endangered.

This project is under construction. We are looking for a residence to mount it. Below are two excerpts from the only repetition that was intended to test the formula.

L'Amour

Jean-Sébastien — 2021-12-31T11:48:53Z

Catherine Jauniaux : voice, objects
Xavier Charles : clarinet
Jean-Sébastien Mariage : guitar

Three musicians meet around a book by Marguerite Duras. Three characters, invented, inspire music, pulsation, harmony ... through their silhouettes, their relationships, their movements, the space in which they find themselves, between the sea, them, and an idea of civilization.

A triangular partition which is formed, deformed and reformed, according to the tides. Music that announces the wandering of souls who are waiting to become.

Lines, dots, strata, melodies and hidden words, shown impacts, certainly acoustic, as if to better meet in the simplest way: playing / being together.

This original trio will not fail to amaze us with its sound fluidity, its sentimental and human generosity, its amorous conviction. Voice, clarinet and guitar are they not the dreamed instruments to take us towards these dreams? Alliance of organic, woody, metallic materials ... Can sound do this? We will see it together.

Release of the CD L'Amour on the label Ayler Records (also available in digital format)

L'amour by X. Charles / C. Jauniaux / J.S. Wedding

Disc Chronicles:

Three improvisers pay homage to Marguerite Duras's novel, L'amour. A presentation of the novel can be found on the author's website.

https://www.marguerite-duras.com/L-amour.php

An invitation to read it again or to get it for yourself.

But here, it is only a question of short extracts set in the music of the trio. No need therefore to look for a narrative thread, itself exploded in the book. The choice of these extracts is also part of the musical project by projecting strange moments where each of the characters is as posed there, without interiority, without past or becoming, a suspended moment.

The diction of Catherine Jauniaux contributes to this "objectification" of the protagonists, of the dog, of the beach, a sort of echo to certain paintings by Giorgio De Chirico (to each his own ghosts). The dreaminess is there, powerfully projected by the singer's voice. We are then seized when this voice changes register, leaves the words and goes to search the vocal cords at the risk of breaking them. Growls, breaths, chirps, crackles, squeaks, trills, babbling, a whole range of vibrations that come to mingle with the surprising creations of the other two protagonists, sometimes melting into an unpredictable alchemy.

Xavier Charles' clarinet participates in this motionless cinematography, in these suspended times by rehearsals, by almost drones of notes held in moving textures, mixed with breaths, by bursts of micro-percussions, by a very extensive vocabulary put at the service of this scenography, of those moments when our sensibility rocks, capsizes.

A string that vibrates for a long time to initiate and punctuate the beginning of the album. Jean-Sébastien Mariage immediately announces his point, to resonate with extracts from the novel, with the "objectification" bias, where the lack of affect of the characters arouses our sensitivity. The guitar is in demand outside of any academic use, sometimes inviting electronics to the borders of cymbal caresses or softly metallic voices. It's about extracting from the guitar, distilling delicate emotional essences.

Note that the inks on the cover are by Catherine Jauniaux, definitely everywhere. Many talents are gathered for this delicate moment with multiple flavors: the three musicians, the novelist, those who made things possible… and your imagination. The magic is only there with you, only with your listening. You must deserve this music, these words, these images. There are those moments of intense pleasure that some know how to offer you, in particular this trio.

Guy Sitruk

Starting with a book by an influential writer - in this instance, Marguerite Duras - to identify useful improvisational cues is a tricky undertaking. The dangers are clear, the greatest of which being the propensity for intellectualization that should never even remotely appear in a situation of creative immediacy. Then, one takes a look at the names involved (Catherine Jauniaux on voice plus objects, Jean-Sébastian Mariage on guitar, Xavier Charles on clarinet) and the disc is approached with a lightened heart, well aware that we won't be cheated.

Starting with a book by an influential writer — in this instance, Marguerite Duras — to identify useful improvisational cues is a tricky undertaking. The dangers are clear, the greatest of which being the propensity for intellectualization that should never even remotely appear in a situation of creative immediacy. Then, one takes a look at the names involved (Catherine Jauniaux on voice plus objects, Jean-Sébastian Mariage on guitar, Xavier Charles on clarinet) and the disc is approached with a lightened heart, well aware that we won't be cheated.

Jauniaux switches between intense recitative and striking displays of her vocal equipment. She often blends with the instruments in unexpected ways, producing a wealth of unadulterated guttural timbres. A controlled virtuosity, at the same time modest and incisive, finely delineating the emotional spectrum of the Belgian artist. Mariage favors the use of guitar as a source of pan-tonal color, always poised for the most suitable indication for the context, whether it be in the form of jangling glissando backgrounds, sparse clean touches, throbbing drones, or subtle noises. Charles confirms his knack for selecting intuitive principles applicable to the collective jargon, somehow foreseeing the course of a spontaneous counterpoint while seasoning the whole with sharp overtones, tension-laden murmurs and chirping splinters of pure genius.

At first you may struggle a tiny bit to fathom the mechanics and developments of the music presented in L'Amour. There will be no difficulty in relishing it unconditionally once everything is deciphered. This is an articulate statement — imbued with somewhat pained humanity — that will be better understood by those who grieve for the absence of a much-loved person. Among the eleven tracks on the program, there are definitely highlights: personally speaking, both "Nuit" and "L'Aurore Extérieure" elicit goosebumps. But the fundamental coherence that permeates the interaction is to be admired at every step. Ultimately, the trio's ability to turn the force of silence into arrows hitting the listener's innermost targets is perhaps the outstanding attribute of this work.

Massimo Ricci

L'amour begins softly, with lone and softly layered tones, decays, ringing, and other noises. It builds in intensity, still quietly. The extended tones fluctuate and stretch. A hiss comes into the left ear, coy squeaks into the center and a bowed(?) guitar persists in the right. The track shimmers and crackles. It heaves at points, before crumbling into a few phrases of carefully articulated French, then ceases. Each of the eleven tracks on L'amour follows a different course, but the basic contours and certain elements – the hushed guitar of Jean-Sébastien Mariage, the extended clarinet of Xavier Charles, and the dynamics between the lyrics, all in French, and the experimental vocalizations of Catherine Jauniaux – bind them, as does the text that inspired this project. I do not know French, so the lyrics, all excerpts from Marguerite Duras' 1971 cinematic novel L'amour, are lost on me. Catherina Jauniaux's powerful delivery, however, is not. Indeed, I might even hear more of the inflections, the drags and stops, and the sonority than I would were the lyrics in a language I understood. This album, moreover, was recorded after the trio toured Moscow, Berlin, Saint Petersburg, and Paris, reconnecting these major cities in which French once dominated as a literal lingua franca potentially to audiences who, like me, were able to bask in the vocals as estranged and beautiful sound. I am not sure how far the point about reasserting French as a regional language of culture should be taken, but, if not the language itself, Jauniaux, Charles, and Mariage are certainly elevating the French experimental scene in some of the experimental hubs of Europe, and without watering it down with Anglicism. The musicians of L'amour form an unconventional trio based on what seems to be an unconventional text. At times, its quiet dynamics remind me of some of the more variegated releases of Creative Sources and Insub. (In fact, it sounds to me like a more developed take on a spoken word, gurgly improv style that the Guez Trio, released years ago by Insub's predecessor netlabel, had experimented with.) That, of course, is not to detract from its distinctiveness. Indeed, although I recognize a lot of the elements on L'amour, I have not heard them combined and staged quite like this. If you know French, I imagine there are layers of meaning accessible to you that I simply cannot speak to. And if you do not, it is certainly enough to let the sounds speak for themselves.

Nick Ostrum

View online : Label Ayler Records

Morphème

Jean-Sébastien — 2021-12-31T11:42:59Z

Jean-Sébastien Mariage : électric guitar and loopers
Frédérick Galiay : composition, electroacoustic traks and diffusion

This piece was recorded at the GRM in June 2021, it is being mixed.

Statement of intent : MORPHÈME # 1 is a piece by Frederick Galiay for electric guitar and electroacoustic diffusion, performed by Jean-Sébastien Mariage.

The composition is envisioned as an excessive zoom of a hyper-slowed transient: a microscopic dive into the tiny space that separates the plectrum attack on the guitar string, from the resonance of the latter, while widening this lapse of time. to extract the spectral components.

The piece is a continuum of three parts, themselves divided into four sub-parts. The very slow progression, the rare and rather distant events lead the listener to question the relationship between space and the spectrum: an immersive installation that plays on the listener's memory.

An acousmonium-type spatialization system broadcasts the electroacoustic tape. The speakers are distributed in the space in the most discreet way possible, the sound volume of the tape is long subliminal, in order to enhance as much as possible, both effectively and perceptually, the acoustics of the place. The guitar comes to inhabit the device by guiding, influencing, distorting the context. The space is in the dark, only the instrumentalist is visible, dimly lit: a duet is thus created between the guitar and the place. It is the place, the space that is given to listen.

Beyond traditional concert venues, Morphème # 1 is d

esigned to be performed in heritage spaces: churches and cloisters, museums, galleries ... Depending on the context, the public may walk around.

Morphème # 1 - Festival Présences Electronique 2015 - interview with Frederick Galiay + extract from the piece:

Balance at the Présences Electronique festival - March 2015:

"No one will dispute the primordial importance of dissemination in music & acousmatic works ... Likewise, the importance of spatialization in "Urban" music.

So the importance of "corrections", equalizations, frequency filters and other delay lines in the simple broadcasting of concerts in large halls ... But, the technical hacking then the noisy excess then "noise" or even "Trash noise" ... reveal the possible use of the mixer as a source. Then through the technique of multiple injections, we see the mixing as a tool of own creation. However, that evening, at the "Instants Chavirés", Fred Galiay, as a composer, created, from a prepared material and with the guitar of Jean-Sébastien Mariage, an instantaneous composition of a new kind ...

Mix serious resonances from synthesis blocks on guitar chords, even simple strings ... With a relatively simple device: A two-way pedal, in instrument output sending on two other pedals managing the loops and the effects. Go back to the mix + source to two baffles in principle non-directional (ceiling oriented) generating sound relief effects ...

What is innovative about this device lies neither in the exchange of the two performers nor in the score; but the "secret" of this instantaneous composition lies in the exploitation of the resonances between the two sources and their spatial distribution. In fact, the deep originality of this device lies in the umbilical association between the resonant exploitation of the material simultaneously with its spatialization. It's like the feed back becomes feed forth! ...

The score notes precisely the time, the blocks and the material to be looped with their assignments and intensities; during mixing, by adjusting the balance of the recorded material and the instrument, as well as by filtering, we can "work" the material in such a way as to sculpt it, to shape it dynamically, to spatialize it ...

This also influences subjectively in return the hold of the instrument, the length of the loops, the speed of the sequences ... Of course, this also implies a very great bond between the actors, and a very shared sensitivity.

But these two long-time traveling companions know how to do it better than anyone! ! The rigor and the subtle variety of the proposed sounds / sequences as well as the spatialization of this work undoubtedly herald future performances and certainly new compositions by Fred Galiay in a role, that of spatializer, which is not necessarily the extension of the guitar ...

Another very beautiful and innovative evening at Les Instants… "

Claude Parle

View online : Full article

Tout Corps d'Etat guitar solo by Jean-Sébastien Mariage

Jean-Sébastien — 2021-12-30T14:32:34Z

The bowstring, like that of the lyre, exerts a pull on the wood, which itself receives each string and tightens it. It is this double pull in both directions that enables the beauty of sound when the beauty of sound says nothing other than the precision of death from the arrow that shoots towards the prey.

Pascal Quignard

Extract from Mourrir de penser - Chapter XIV - Le boomerang (Grasset - 2014)

Its name is a play on words with "any state of the body". It's a guitar solo, it's not a dance, but the sound is generated by the movements of the musician, approaching and moving away from the guitar amplifiers. It's a feedback game.

I started this work in May 2019 and premiered in May 2021 at the Muse en Circuit (https://alamuse.com).

Feedback. Sounds are launched from the amplifier to the guitar, where they bounce back to their source. The strings of the guitar weave a web which reveals a sound horizon whose reliefs are drawn by the fluctuations of the electric matter. Far from control or mastery, the musician here brings into play a most simplistic device that he pushes to the extreme, wandering around the amplifier, like a dance that destabilizes the waves.

This project was performed for the first time at the Pépète Lumière festival (France) at the end of May 2021. It will be played next March at the invitation of Jazz à Poitiers (France) after a conference called "Cosmologie of noise".

Teaser :

Full video :

Tout Corps d'État - guitar solo by Jean-Sébastien Mariage

View online : Full description