The Squid's Ear Magazine


Alexis, Roldolphe / Stephane Rives: Winds Doors Poplars (Herbal International)

Rodolphe Alexis composed these works from a diverse set of recordings of trains, factories and other potent sounds, pairing them with recordings from saxophonist Stephane Rives using extended and unusual techniques, yielding these inventive and irrepressible sound works.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Rodolphe Alexis-field recordings, editing

Stephane Rives-soprano saxophone


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Label: Herbal International
Catalog ID: 1401
Squidco Product Code: 20810

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2014
Country: Malaysia
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold 3 Panels
Saxophone recorded at Tunefork Studio

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Similar to the Gauguet only in the sense that the strategy involved has been done before yet the results are striking and very well conceived. Alexis, for these five pieces, made field recordings in various situations including train lines and factories, concentrating on different sound areas within each while Rives created his soprano saxophone improvisations at another time and place without reference to Alexis' recordings, the two grafted atop each other leaving the listener to make connections and patterns.

I'm guessing some amount of choice was made, perhaps by Alexis, in determining which of Rives' recordings to use with which of his own (simply because they seem to "fit" pretty well), but otherwise, chance is allowed to rule vis a vis the interaction of the elements. Rives spends substantial time in his "comfort zone" of the high-pitched, two- or three-ply tone (pairs well with wind) but also engages in deep buzzes and low clucks while Alexis' choice of venuesecording sites is also imaginative, from the fine, heavy openings and closings of squeaking factory doors to exterior, rainy environs.

The one scenario that stands apart here is "Solid Steel Sculpture" where I'm fairly sure some large metal element is being "played", possibly by gloved hands, resulting in a sound (and even rhythms) not so dissimilar from Partch's larger percussion instruments like the Marimba Eroica. As said, the listener creates his/her own correspondences and, thanks to the wealth of material and the imagination which which it's deployed, there's no problem doing so. A very enjoyable, thoughtful exercise."-Brian Olewnick, Just Outside


Artist Biographies

"Stéphane Rives is part of the current of an improvisation of materials and textures more than games and themes. More trivially, a fucking sound that torments the eardrum and drives the hammers into a panic, opening up gulfs in the understanding. Double simultaneous sounds, high pitch in the splendid isolation of the peaks and breath close to asthma, close to sinewave and the wind which passes in force under the door. The result is a strange almost disturbing abstraction, so much we no longer hear a saxophone but something quite different, without being able to name this something else.

Do not believe that there is a feat here, that in the end it would only be due to technique, to a power of dissimulation, that would be little in the eyes of music. In the granulations, we reach such a decomposition of what constitutes music for academies, that we are literally stunned, pierced by this sonic twist, a metal sander applied to the human ear, revolving sounds tearing shavings from our cultural foundations, uncertainty of what and how."-Michel Henritzi - Review & Corrected

-Stephane Rives Website (Translated by Google) (http://musique.stephane-rives.fr/bio.html)
3/13/2024

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


Track Listing:



1. I Warehouse Doors 7:08

2. II Autorail 8:40

3. III The Poet House 7:15

4. IV Solid Steel Sculpture 6:27

5. V Poplars 10:58

Related Categories of Interest:


Improvised Music
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Field Recordings
Recordings by or featuring Reed & Wind Players
Duo Recordings
Organized Sound and Sample Based Music
New in Experimental & Electronic Music

Search for other titles on the label:
Herbal International.


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