A collaborative album born from a live performance rooted in a meticulous mutual observation of each musician’s playing style and setup: eRikm’s turntables, electronic devices, and vast sound library; and Pierre Bastien’s mechanical orchestra and range of acoustic instruments.
Jean Dubuffet used to define his music as something disordered and dirty. But here, it is a Dubuffet returning from a long journey in Africa, with haunting rhythms that reach trance-like states, corrupted by eRikm's UK Drill.
"With one exception, this disc is a recording of a concert given at the Ateliers Claus in Brussels in March 2024. It was preceded by three short hours of improvisation the day before and the day before that, during which eRikm and I made a series of careful observations of each other's playing. It must be said that neither of us had skimped on transporting a few cases, the contents of which would have allowed us to play several concerts in a row without ever repeating ourselves. Erik had brought his turntables to Brussels, as well as sophisticated electronic machines, accompanied by a virtually infinite sound bank. For my part, I had both a mechanical orchestra and a range of acoustic instruments at my disposal. In two sessions, we eliminated the superfluous and the ineffective. On the evening of the concert, it was through close observation-of each sound, each direction taken by one or the other, each intention, each break-that we composed this record in the moment: vigilant and scrutinising, like the pairs of eyes on the cover of this album."
Pierre Bastien
Since 1992, eRikm (born 1970), a Marseilles based artist,
has extended the field of artistic experimentation on the international scene.
Maintaining a constant fusion between thought, instinct and sensitivity, he pursues a simultaneity of practices and addresses the interplay between various compositional modes, relating to and using all languages.
From his early experience as a guitarist through to his later visual work, he is a maverick genre-bender who breaks down anyone's attempts to conveniently classify him.
Quickly recognised as a virtuoso
turntablist and
sound artist (1996), eRikm has made a longlife habit of crossing all territories and “world-systems” deemed “independent”, “institutional”.
At the same time (1997), he has developed an open and aspirational approach toward the technological media, both as a means of development for a new economic model and as an instrument for creation, production and diffusion.
He deals with sounds like living organisms, constantly in flux, always open to the risk of accident or delight/unisson. As he plays with all these contradictions in his improvisations, his performance reaches new heights of intensity, trading off both understanding and sensation, seriousness and farce, anticipation and instinct.
His work references both the intimate and political, both popular and high culture, but without demonstration. Rather he creates a short-circuit connection between points with his live generated (and degenerated) material—from noise to reference – presenting multiple ways to capture each moment of the present in clear focus.
Throughout his career, collaborations have naturally occurred with his audiences and contemporaries, most notably :
Luc Ferrari,
Christian Marclay, Mathilde Monnier, Jerome Noetinger, FM Einheit... The kind of coincidences which have confirmed his instinctive search for transmutation, and to play on several levels.
Since 1997, on his own or with collaborators, eRikm has toured (with 5-7 on-tour projects to date), or created by request specific pieces, both transversal or for fixed spaces (record labels, radio, festivals, art centres...).
In the meanwhile, each time building on what has emerged before, the most personal fragments from his work (notably from his early artworks in photography, drawings, visual installations and video) continue to substantiate a singular kaleidoscopic vision.
Ultimately, eRikm's research resonates through all of his work, bordering scientific discovery and a poetic curiosity of the world.
See also
Sury-Tanuki (eRikm &
Caroline Sury).
Pierre Bastien (born 1953 in Paris) is a French experimental musician, composer and musical instrument builder.
Bastien post-graduated in eighteenth-century French literature at University Paris-Sorbonne. In 1977 he built his first musical machinery. For the next ten years he has been composing for dance companies and playing with
Pascal Comelade. In the meantime he was constantly developing his mechanical orchestra. Since 1987 he concentrates on it through solo performances, sound installations, recordings and collaborations with such artists as
Pierrick Sorin, Karel Doing, Jean Weinfeld, Robert Wyatt or Issey Miyake.
