This section contains musical projects in which I have been involved. For media related my anthropological studies of music, please see the publications list.
This section is organised as:
Film & theater music
Ondine's gamelan
Kagok Semarang is a traditional gamelan tune, performed here by Estelle Amy de la Bretèque in several playback takes. I realized different mixes to accompany a friend's mise-en-scène of the play Ondine by Jean Giraudoux. The play was staged twice as my friend's final project at the professional theater school Cours Florent in Paris.
Opening
A 20 minutes loop (cut to 2 minutes here) played during public's entrance and first moments of the play.
Between act I and II
The stage is dark. The knight wakes up between two paths of light and hesitates on which of them to follow.
Act II
Remix of the Allegro of Sympĥony n°34 by W. A. Mozart. Made it to last only 20 seconds (!), as a jingle to the king & court's entrance.
Final scene
Death comes to get the knight. Ondine forgets everything...
Borders
From the soundtrack of the documentary film Au delà des frontières (Borders), by Bartolomeo Conti, Richard Prost and Sharon Weill, 2004 (8 et plus productions, Paris).
Wawa
For the opening/closing credits of the film. The synthesizer is playing a rhythmic drone note with a rich sound, obtained through a rough mix of triangle-shaped waves. To this I applied a bandwidth filter, controlled through the keyboard's mod-wheel. The melodic line is perfomed on a syrian ney.
Korish
My friend Korish Taba, playing the 'ud during a party back in 1997... To his chorus, I added some drops.
D'n'f
Drum'n'lute, for a "fast-forward" sequence of the film. The instruments here are pandeiro (played verically like a ganjira), jew's harp, bulgarian kaval, and sampled drums and bass guitar.
In limbo (with Rafiralfiro trio)
Since 2008 I occasionally perform with Rafiralfiro and trio. The trio is designed as a blend of "electro-dub-hop" (Raf's main work) with bass guitar (Ertug Tahmaz) and drums (Pierre Ickovic). In this context I play kaval flute, bouzouki, sanza and jew's harp, sometimes with electronic effects added.
In december 2009, the trio recorded its first physical album, named In Limbo. I contributed on two tracks.
This music is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Panafricaine (track 8)
My contribution here is bouzouki at the begining, then a short sanza riff, later some turkish kaval (played more like a qasba) recorded twice for fuller sound, and eventually bulgarian kaval on the last chorus.
In limbo (track 6)
At the beginning and the end, I tried to melt kaval sounds in the "ambiance" created by Raf (bells, sweeping pads and echoed sounds). After the drum stops and before the kaval starts over again, I played some bouzouki as a transition for the "clinking" side of this ambiance.
Antiduşmani
Duets with Estelle Amy de la Bretèque (drums & vocals).
Our tunes are mainly from Eastern Europe, Russia and the Balkans.
All music here (Antidușmani) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Paidi mou
Voice, kaval and tambourine. Music and lyrics composed by Sofia Kollitiri.
A mother adresses her child, evoking the sacrifices she went through for him, lamenting that he now left to live far away, and promising that she would always welcome him back, if ever he felt homesick. In brief, deep pathos!
La Șalul cel negru
Voice and guitar. This is quite typical of the repertoire of Gypsy professional musicians in Romania (the lăutari). It was recorded famously by Dona Dumitru Siminică. Our version is (by far) more minimalist, but tries to capture nevertheless a similar ambiance of nostalgia.
The lyrics portray a male narrator remembering how he used to love a young and beautiful woman, without noticing that she was in love with another... The last line is : "Because in those times / I easily believed in love / And didn't even know / What suffering really meant" (Căci atuncea lesne / În amor credeam / Și nenorocirea / Nici n-o cunoșteam).
Tzivaeri
Voice and bouzouki. In Greek, tzivaeri is the name of a light wind. The lyrics are about exile, longing and "black destiny".
Kokkina hili
Voice and kaval. The song is in Greek. Kokkina hili means "red lips". The lyrics say that: "I kissed red lips and my lips became red lips / I wiped my lips with a handkerchief and the handkerchief became red lips / I washed the handkerchied in the river and the river became red lips / An eagle came to drink from the river and his wings became red lips..."
Experimental looping
These experiences are based on software loopers: either freewheeling, or sooperlooper. They provide ways to
- record sounds, from microphone or midi ;
- instantly play back the samples in loops ;
- mix and tweak the playback if needed.
Freewheeling is best at dealing with many loops. Sooperlooper is best at overdubbing and tweaking on one or two channels. In addition, to the loopers themselves, I use ladspa plugins, piled in jack-rack. To control the software, I use a BCR2000 interface (basically a set of buttons that sends MIDI controls to the computers), and sometimes a BCF-10 pedal rack (to leave the hands free for playing).
At the mike inputs, I play bouzouki, flutes (kaval, ney, tin whistle...), percussions (pandeiro, bendir...), jew's harp and sanza. The other sounds come from a small MIDI keyboard controlling a software synthethizer (fluidsynth).
The overall idea is to improvise, in the spirit of live performance (never go back).
All music here (looping experiments) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Dicta mamo ti bori (feat. Estelle & Mickey Mouse)
1 December 2010
Dicta mamo ti bori is a song in romanes (Gypsy language). It is discussed in my pedagogical book. On a saturday night, Estelle and I tweaked it on sooperlooper. The performance is 100% vocal. The Mickey Mouse part takes advantage of the software's ability to change the speed of the loop.
Echoes on kaval
4 November 2008
Experimenting with kaval and different kinds of echo.
First excerpt
On the backround loop we have pandeiro and acoustic bass guitar. The kaval enters raw, then gains a sweeping bandwidth filter controlled by a Lorenz attractor (which makes the filter random).
Second excerpt
Backgound loop has shifted to bass + bendir. The kaval is played without echo. Towards the middle, the free "floating" chorus transforms in a pile of loops. The last couch is tweaked with pitch shift.
Third excerpt
On the background loop there is bass + pandeiro (played vertically, as a bendir). The kaval has long range stereo echo trailing beneath.
You can download the loops of this session here (40 Mo). To use them in freewheeling, uncompress the archive in the "scenes" folder of your installation.
Reggae style
10 June 2007
The loops here are synthesizer-based (midi keyboard controlling fluidsynth). The kaval plays in-between vocal and instrumental attitudes.
First excerpt
Second excerpt
In this excerpt, the kaval is occasionally looped too. The excerpt ends on a question-response game, where the loop is the "response".
You can download the loops of this session by clicking here. To use them in freewheeling, uncompress the archive in the "scenes" folder of your installation.