The Squid's Ear Magazine


Marion, Louis-Michel / Francoise Toullec: Apocalyptic Garden (Creative Sources)

A strangely agitated garden sculpted from melody, dissonance and instrumental abberation through profound technique and unusual approaches to their instrument, by French double bassist Louis-Michel Marion and pianist Françoise Toullec, bringing a sense of wonder and turbulent environment through a shared passion balancing ominous space with astute activity.
 

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Personnel:



Louis-Michel Marion-double bass

Francoise Toullec-piano


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UPC: 5609063407075

Label: Creative Sources
Catalog ID: cs707
Squidco Product Code: 30686

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2021
Country: Portugal
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at CCAM-Scene Nationale Vandoeuvre, on January 2th, 1021

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"When two tightrope walkers go a long way together, we know in advance that the trip will also be, for them as for us, a different adventure. Pianist Françoise Toullec and double bassist Louis-Michel Marion have temporarily left their Banquise to enter a strange, rather enigmatic garden, which we discover step by step and which turns out to be delightful from start to finish. There is no rope or owl, only a good dose of mystery. That of this compromise - somewhere between composition and improvisation - so dear to a musician whose quests can sometimes require going beyond the usual eighty-eight keys of her instrument.

The etymology of the word "apocalyptic" tells us that it is about lifting the veil. So close your eyes, then open them slowly, because your full attention is required. Let yourself be carried away in an undefined space with nocturnal colors, between anxiety and serenity, where silence is sometimes required. Time ticks away slowly, following a willingly dissonant wandering that could never end. If the music is often melody and harmony, the one that is played on the side of this Apocalyptic Garden is of a completely different nature. It is a conversation of sounds, echoes and noises, of notes that escape like ephemeral bubbles, of friction or plucking of strings, those of the piano like those of the double bass; it is imagination; it is an exchange of glances; it suggests other directions. Is it vegetable? Animal? Who knows, it's up to you to search in the interstices of this secret place, with uncertain contours, to guess the nature of the invisible creatures that we meet there by imagining them more than by seeing them... Above all, trust these two guides can't wait to get on board with them. There is a shared curiosity and passion in their exchange, no doubt driven by the desire to go elsewhere to see if we would not all be better off there than in our material world. But it is also their deep being that is expressed in direct connection with ours, carried by the generosity that we have known about them for a long time.

Recorded in January 2021 at the CCAM-Scène Nationale in Vandoeuvre-lès-Nancy, Apocalyptic Garden looks like a bewitchment ceremony. It is also an invitation to find ourselves, to get closer, after all these months when the other was too often singled out as a potential enemy. The apocalypse according to Françoise Toullec and Louis-Michel Marion, essential as we have understood, is good for today, let it be said..."-Citizen Jazz (translated by Google)


Get additional information at Citizen Jazz

Artist Biographies

"Louis-Michel Marion"

"After starting as a rock / blues bassist and studying speech therapy and language sciences, he studied bass with Jean-François Jenny-Clark and Pierre Hellouin. He takes great musical lessons by playing alongside Jacques Di Donato, Vinko Globokar, Joe McPhee, Steve Potts, Paul Rogers, Annick Nozati, Keith Rowe, Malcolm Goldstein, Le Quan Ninh (non exhaustive list).

He approaches his instrument without a priori, simply as a sound generator. His work of improvisation feeds on listening to musicians such as Joëlle Léandre, G. Scelsi, Barre Phillips, Daunik Lazro, I. Xenakis, S. Sciarrino and Morton Feldman (non exhaustive list).

"As comfortable in the contemporary field as in the improvisation - still a similarity with Joëlle Léandre, finely combining the play with the bow and the pizzicato, Marion takes us to countries of a poetic quite joyous And repetitive at will. "Serge Perrot / Improjazz

"Marion affirms her desire to pull ropes out of her double bass all the life they contain, until the last breath. Arco, he becomes the receiver, then the transmitter of vibrations that occupy the space to draw a sonorous, moving and palpable material, so much his work on the resonances, the grain and the colors allows each one To feel it physically. Like a sculpture of the invisible. We do not listen to this music, we receive it in the hollow of the stomach, throbbing and dark, animated by a continuous movement, such as the choreography of a struggle between internal forces whose tension never weakens; She opened the doors of an unknown attracting and disturbing in equal proportions. "Denis Desassis / Citizen Jazz

For twenty years, he has devoted himself mainly to improvisation in ensembles of all sizes, from duet to 15tet (notably with Systme Friche / Jacques DiDonato) to a continuing relationship with choreographer Aurore Gruel (duet Hay Que Caminar) as well as the exploration of solo double bass parts (Scelsi, Scodanibbio, Donatoni, Bussotti, Goldstein ...). Fascinated by the music of Eliane Radigue, he met her in 2104 and created "Occam Océan XIX" for five-string bass, "Occam River V" for double bass and bass clarinet with Carol Robinson (Music Festival Démesurées in November 2014) "Occam Hexa III" (Cartier Foundation, July 2016).

Regularly invited by the Ensemble Ultim'Asonata - specializing in contemporary music, he is also a member of the group Azéotropes (contemporary jazz, improvisation) around the pianist composer Loris Binot.In 2009, he founded the Nocturnal Archipelago, a string and percussion ensemble dedicated to music on the margins of improvisation and open writing, for which he composed.

Sensitive to architecture, the spatial and acoustic environment, he particularly likes to plan and organize musical projects in unconventional places.Always leaving for interdisciplinary meetings, he participated in numerous choreographic, theatrical or other creations ... and has been closely interested in the viola da gamba for a few years.

LM Marion is regularly asked to conduct improvisation workshops by conservatories, music schools or in connection with festivals (Nancy, Metz, Lille, Montreuil, Malzéville, Troyes, Reims, Saint Dié, CNFPT of Nancy, CEFEDEM Of Lorraine, CCAM-National Scene of Vandoeuvre les Nancy, University of Reims-Champagne Ardenne, Conservatory of Saint-Die of the Vosges, CRR of Nancy ...).

His research has led him to take part in numerous theatrical, choreographic, cinematographic and radio creations (France Musique: "Les contes du jour et du nuit", "Une unevisvis", "Alla Breve"),

Collaborations with Cie Ormone / Aurore Gruel, Cie Echo / Christine Koetzel, Mille Faille / Marie Cambois Co., Li-Luo Cie / Camille Mutel, Cie In Freech ..., Cie Inouïe / Thierry Balasse / Maud Contini, Cie Distortion / Hervé Birolini, readings with Michaël Glück (Festival Poema)

Among his recent creations:

- "Mnemoliths" composition for the Nocturnal Archipelago, creation at the Music Action 2013 festival (CCAM-National Scene of Vandœuvre les Nancy)- "Fantaisie en Si", by Françoise Toullec, commissioned by Radio France for the program Alla Breve- "Nine Days" Cie ENZ at the Festival Exp-Edition / Biennale de la danse en Lorraine- "Riverrun" (around Finnegans Wake by James Joyce), "If any" and "Two by two" with Maud Contini (Cie Temporal)

He has published 2 CDs solo:

"Grounds" Poem-meditation on the low string, on the Emil label"5 strophes", on the label Kadima Collective Records

Some of his collaborations include: Daunik Lazro, Jacques Di Donato, Xavier Charles, Camel Zekri, Dominique Regef, Malcolm Goldstein, Fran¨oise Toullec, Mimi Lorenzini, Steve Potts, Annick Nozati, Eliane Radigue, Matthias Kaul, Thierry Madiot, Fabrice Villard, Matthias Pontevia Jean-Luc Petit, Eric Brochard, Jean-Marc Montera, Dominique Rˇpˇcaud, Claude Tchamitchian, Eric Echampard, Joe Mc Phee, Laurent Dailleau, Sophie Agnel, Fabrice Charles, Laurent Charles, Jˇr™me Bourdellon, David Chiesa, Jim Denley, Keith Rowe, Philippe Berger, Hervˇ Birolini, Aurore Gruel, Antoine Arlot, Carol Robinson, Hˇl¸ne Breschand..."

-Louis-Michel Marion Website (translated by Google) (http://louismichelmarion.wixsite.com/louis-michel-marion/bio)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Françoise Toullec, pianist, composer-improviser.

After university studies, she returned to music and piano (jazz and improvisation courses at Alan Silva's IACP and instrument lessons at the Martenot School).

She has been pursuing since 1994 with her various formations and in particular with the quintet La Banquise (Claudia Solal, Louis Michel Marion, Antoine Arlot, Michel Deltruc) an approach where the close link between writing and music is constantly deepened and renewed. improvisation; is influenced by contemporary music (G.Kurtag, T.Murail, M.Ohanna, I.Xenakis, G.Aperghis, G.Pesson, J.Lenot, Lachenman, M.Andre...) musical theatre, sound poetry and current trends in improvisation.

She works regularly between 1999 and 2014 as a pianist alongside guitarist Mimi Lorenzini, in an improvisation duo or within his creations (Orchestre de l'extase, Opus pour un autre temps) and directs with him the association Musiseine en Champagne Ardennes. Develops within this association cultural projects in collaboration with the Conservatories, Music Schools, Universities of Reims and Troyes.

In the field of theater she composes for the company La Strada: realization in 2001 of the music of "Between East and West" and "The head under the pillow" in 2008).

Author of numerous multidisciplinary projects: Jeux de Brousse (1999), Le Perturbateur (2000), Les 2soleils et les 2lunes (2003) commissioned by the Orchester Pagaille, Passagers clandestines (2004) railway opera, commissioned by the festival "Les nuits et les Jours de Querbes", Scènes fantasques (2005), Opéra Bleu (2008), she collaborates with visual artists, painters, videographers and particularly with the noise sculptor William Noblet.

Passionate about the relationship of words to sounds and of literature to music, she created in 2011 with Tania Pividori the duo Le Cœur Sans Doute, a repertoire of songs and compositions around erotic and amorous feminine poetry. She also formed in 2011 with Dominique Fonfrède the duo Dramaticules, placing improvisation and sound poetry at the heart of the project and continuing on the piano (prepared or not) her instrumental research of multiplicity of timbres and pianistic spaces.

She includes fantasy in all its forms in her compositional research and thus designs various "sound comedies" including Fantaisie en si for the quintet La Banquise, on texts by Fabrice Villard, commissioned by Radio France for the program Alla Breve (October 2013 ) and Le Gouffre d'en haut, a circus and Dadaist sound comedy, which received support for the writing of an original musical work from the Ministry of Culture and Communication. (2016 creation, commissioned by the Ensemble L'Archipel Nocturne)

Scenic and other references

Radio France for the "improviste" programs of France Musique (with Claudia Solal and Mimi Lorenzini, in duet with François Tusques, with La Banquise, Dramaticules), and Alla Breve.

Creation residencies at the CNCM Césaré in Reims, at Transversales in Verdun, at the Nouveau Relax in Chaumont...Numerous Festivals and Stages of Jazz and Improvised Music, National Stages, Theatres, Universities, Conservatories...

Also had the pleasure of playing or working with:

Annick Nozati Lucia Recio Morena Fattorini René Leborgne Jean Querlier Fabrice Villard Ramon Lopez François Tusques Sabine Boukobza François Bertrand (filmmaker) François Cancelli Jean Luc Debattice (actors) Aurore Gruel (dancer-choreographer) Maureen Enns (ethologist), the Pagaille Lê Quan Ninh ensemble Thibault Walter Noël Mac Ghie Steve Potts Jean luc Ponthieux Christiane Bopp Carol Robinson Andrée Philippot Mathieu (painter videographer) Thomas Chevalier (painter) Mirtha Pozzi Pablo Cueco Magali Imbert Pierre Louis Garcia Cecile Audebert Eric Zinman The ensemble L'Archipel Nocturne Christelle Séry..."

-Francoise Toullec Website (Translated by Google) (http://francoisetoullec.free.fr/)
3/27/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. In A Large City 42:39

2. Gently Appearing 10:19

3. A Panoptic Reality 14:38

Related Categories of Interest:


Creative Sources
Improvised Music
Free Improvisation
Jazz
Chamber Jazz
Stringed Instruments
Piano & Keyboards
Instruments with Preparations
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Duo Recordings
New in Improvised Music

Search for other titles on the label:
Creative Sources.


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