Glass mastered CD. Packaged in clear vinyl sleeve with folded insert and additional art card on 350gr satin paper. Limited edition of 170 hand-numbered copies.
Includes unlimited streaming of étang donné
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
ships out within 3 days
edition of 170
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Streaming + Download
Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Limited hand-numbered edition CD (30 copies only !) - SPECIAL EDITION
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Glass mastered CD. Packaged in black mass-tinted cardboard digisleeve with frame. It holds a set of 2 double-sided art cards with a different artwork from the regular edition on 350gr satin paper + a unique hand-numbered painting from the artist himself + a folded copy of a graphic sketch as a kind of memory note of the process behind the work.
Inner sleeve features a strip of 150 gsm Khadi handmade cotton rag paper inkjet printed with edition number, artist’s name + title.
Includes unlimited streaming of étang donné
via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
Saisir la densité impassible de l’eau. Le jour. Le chant des oiseaux. La nuit. La clameur des nuages. L’été. Le souffle des arbres. Au printemps. Celui des poissons, à l’automne. Le bourgeonnement des arbres. Soleil zénithal. L’éclosion des fleurs, un soir de pleine lune. Les vaguelettes poussées par le vent sur la surface écarlate de l’étang. Le déplacement furtif des branches des saules sous une pluie diurne. Le saut des insectes à la lumière chaude. Le cri rauque du coq. En hiver. L’air lourd un matin brumeux … l’ombre fine des grenouilles sautant au passage du vent …
Cartographier par le son un lieu. Arpenter soniquement … sonder sonorement un paysage … PhonoGraphier l’étang du village où je vis, m’est apparu comme une évidence pour ce projet. Cet élément naturel, morceau de paysage à la fois liquide et organique, travaillait déjà mon imaginaire pictural et mental depuis plusieurs années. Se situant à quelques pas de l’atelier, je m’y rends pour respirer, observer, enregistrer des images, prendre des matériaux, enregistrer des sons. Il existe un lien caché entre ce lieu et un autre imaginaire que j’ai appelé muori pour un cycle de peintures. Un lien caché avec les îles de la Réunion et des Antilles habitées un temps. Du reste, l’étang de Saint Jean sur Erve, à la sortie du premier confinement, a vu en son centre émergé une île. Etrangeté de la tectonique des plaques et des rencontres imagées, imaginaires.
Cette captation s’est étendue sur un temps assez long, finalement. Plusieurs années, par petites touches afin de former des croquis, vagues, des esquisses incomplètes, sourdes à certaines fréquences ou couleurs du lieu. Les prises donnent lieu parfois à quelques gestes ou rituels avec ou dans la matière organique de l’étang. L’eau clapote. Les pas se font moelleux. Les oiseaux enchantent l’espace. Les gouttent glissent sur le bois du chêne. L’écureuil s’enfuit à mon approche. Le couple de hérons traverse sur l’autre rive en fonction de mes arrêts. Les marches sont plus ou moins longues. Elles ont lieux à divers moments. A la recherche d’une surprise, d’un son nouveau, d’une révélation. Le paysage est saisi dans un mouvement continu et cyclique.
Les matières sont ensuite confrontées, assemblées, découpées, développées, remodelées, juxtaposées, superposées pour former un paysage, autour de l’étang, mémoire phonique et réserve d’images. Couches après couches le paysage imaginaire se transforme, bouge et finalement il mue en peinture fragile et tangible.
Etang donné* apparait ou voudrait apparaitre comme un paysage mental, un espace sensible, une peinture sonore non pas réaliste, ni narrative du lieu visité, sondé, regardé, arpenté, traversé, vécu mais l’aboutissement d’une expérience de cet étang. Une pièce sonore aux allers et venues contractées, aux mouvements de balancements, aux « retours » incessants, aux cercles concentriques formées par les multiples passages. Le morceau éclot. La peinture se fait dense. Les sons enflent. Une « présence » résonne en nous. On entre dans la matière du lieu, composite, organique.
*(Le titre du morceau rejoue celui de Marcel Duchamp, histoire d’eau aussi)
(philippe neau, 25 June 2021)
~
Capture the unshaken density of water. The day. Birdsongs. The night. The clamour of the clouds. Summer. The breath of the trees. In spring. That of the fish, in the fall. Budding trees. Zenith sun. The blooming of flowers on a full moon night. The ripples blown by the wind across the scarlet surface of the pond. The furtive swing of the willow branches under a diurnal rain. Leaping insects in warm light. The hoarse cry of the rooster. In winter. The heavy air on a misty morning … the flimsy shadow of the frogs jumping in the breeze …
Mapping a place by sound. Sonically pacing … sounding a landscape … PhonoGraphing the pond in the village where I live seemed obvious to me for this project. This natural element, a piece of landscape both liquid and organic, had already fuelled my pictorial and mental imagination for several years. The pond being a few steps away from the workshop, I often go there to breathe, observe, record images, take materials, record sounds. There is a hidden link between this place and another imaginary world that I called Muori for a cycle of paintings. A hidden link with the islands of Reunion and the West Indies that were once inhabited. Moreover, an island surprisingly appeared right in the centre of the pond of Saint Jean sur Erve, at the end of the first lockdown. Strangeness of imagery plate and picture tectonics. Oddity of imaginary encounters.
This capture went on for quite a long time, after all. Several years, by small touches, in order to form sketches, waves, incomplete sketches, deaf to certain frequencies or colours of the place. The takes sometimes trigger gestures or rituals with or within the organic matter of the pond. The water is lapping. The steps are soft. Birds enchant the space. The drips glide over the oak wood. The squirrel fled as I approached. The pair of herons crosses to the other side mirroring my wanderings. These walks vary in length. They take place at various times. Looking for a surprise, a new sound, a revelation. The landscape is captured in a continuous and cyclical movement.
The materials are then confronted, assembled, cut, developed, remodelled, juxtaposed, superimposed to form a landscape, around the pond, a collection of sound memory, a stockpile of images. Layer after layer, the imaginary landscape transforms, moves and eventually turns into a fragile and tangible painting.
Etang donné* appears -or would like to appear- as a mental landscape, a sensitive space, a sound painting that is neither realistic nor narrative of the place that was visited, probed, contemplated, surveyed, crossed, lived in, but simply the outcome of an experience of this pond. A sound piece with condensed comings and goings, swaying movements, endless “come backs”, concentric circles formed by multiple visits.
The song hatches. The painting becomes dense. The sounds swell. A “presence” resonates within us. We enter the material of the place, composite, organic.
*(The title of the piece aludes to that of Marcel Duchamp, Histoire d’Eau Aussi -, meaning “also a story of water”. Etang donné translates as « given Pond » with a pun in French meaning « Given that»)
( translated by Florence Collobert, June 2021)
credits
released August 24, 2021
LOCATION : étang de Saint Jean sur Erve (small town in Mayenne), France
48°02'06.5"N 0°23'18.6"W
Source recordings made between 2018 - 2020.
Mastered by Flavien Gillié.
Cover & card design + treatments by Daniel Crokaert.
Based exclusively on photos by philippe neau.
Portrait by philippe neau.
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