PRICE:
$15.50
IN STOCK
ARTIST
TITLE
Soliloques
FORMAT
CD

LABEL
CATALOG #
SR 237CD SR 237CD
GENRE
RELEASE DATE
9/29/2009

Spoken word release, in French. This is the first full-length solo release from Brussels-based sound-poet Gabriel Séverin on Sub Rosa. Séverin has been active in the field of electronic music for almost two decades (Silk Saw, Jardin d'Usure, Ultraphonist, Rob(u)rang, Dead Hollywood Stars), delving into diverse disciplines, exploring forgotten or obscure areas of the avant-garde. The artist himself contextualizes his literary and vocal-based work on Solliloques thusly: "The enemy's tongue/a friendly voice: there is a voice, the one we know, or so we think. Then, there is another one, the inner voice, timbre-less yet holding all timbres, the one talking when the first one does not. It does not always express itself, and with some people it might never do so, because it comes unrestrainedly and freely. How were the texts for this recording selected? Besides representatives from the écrit brut current (art brut's 'literary' equivalent), such as Aimable Jayet, Sylvain Lecoq, and Jeanne Tripier, celebrities from the literary pantheon have found a place within this collection. To us, there is no doubt that some of the writings of Henri Michaux, Antonin Artaud, Samuel Beckett, Raymond Roussel, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Claudel (his 'art poétique'), Pierre Guyotat, Alfred Jarry, and many others, are level with a large number of écrits bruts. They convey the same desire to transgress codes, a similar explosion of semantics, an identical questioning of social standards, the same trance, an inner voice expressing a similar gift in clairvoyance or even shamanism, and finally very close kinds of fancy, humor and freshness. A few more words about this recording: each text was performed several times in the studio. Microphones (between three and six) were placed in various locations: usually one just above the mouth and another very close to the throat, with other microphones placed at an increasing distance from me (in one recording, there is even a microphone in the yard -- you can hear church bells). Sometimes, there was a mike pointed at the ceiling (but what could have been coming from that direction, except the voices of the household). In occasionally favoring the further microphones, we get breath, but also a certain sound modification (or even a delay) and a quavering in the air."