A live recording at POP in Berlin between synth and electronics player Jean-Marc Foussat and vocalist and electronicist Maria Luisa Capurso, subverting the voice through electronics and effects to create wildly encompassing sound environments that contrast Foussat's synthetics with the organic quality of the human voice; rich, hallucinatory, wonderful.
Label: Fou Records Catalog ID: FR-CD17 Squidco Product Code: 23423
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2016 Country: France Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded "Live" at POP - der Laden, Berlin, Germany, on February 19th, 2016.
"[...] En Respirant is more programmatic, briskly changing ideas and approaches. The music here is about subverting-even destroying-some of our most strongly-held aural associations by playing with the human voice, which by the very wiring of our brains we can never fail to address. Both Foussat and Capurso use their voices as fuel for their electronics, distorting them beyond all recognition but periodically revealing flashes of the human source. Paradoxically, this allows some of the most conventional moments to be the most powerful - towards the end of "Osmosis," after a thorough deconstruction of anything resembling humanity, the sound drops away to Foussat's electronic shimmer, and Capurso enters with a simple, hymnal melody, vocal loops slowly breaking away and diverging in a haunting canon.
"Purple Future" playfully contrasts Capurso's voicings with those of seagulls, something that sounds ridiculous, but feels logical in the psychedelic swirl the two have conjured. The track moves from trippy to soothing to rather menacing while preserving many of the same elements. By adding and subtracting sounds, the context of others is rebuilt on the fly: nighttime insects change in a moment from summertime soundtrack to rapidly encroaching swarm.
Both À La Face Du Ciel and En Respirant document fascinating strategies for dealing with the "problem" of Foussat: Camões, by using virtuosity and ingenuity to confront him on the viola's terms; Capurso, by blending into the electronic wash and addressing his challenges from the inside out."-Dan Sorrells, The Free Jazz Collective