Includes digital pre-order of FASO NORD / sable 01.
You get 3 tracks now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
digital album releases March 3, 2024
item ships out within 7 days
€11EURor more
Streaming + Download
Pre-order of FASO NORD / sable 01. You get 3 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
"Desert music, or music for the desert, one could say both.
In the northern regions of Burkina Faso, bordering Mali and Niger, remoteness and the natural environment impose a way of life without the modern tools of the city. The sound landscape is necessarily closely linked to the natural elements. The population, small in number, is scattered in small communities of only a few dozen inhabitants.
For many years, Hughes Germain has been traveling through these territories, capturing their unique sounds. Whether concrete or abstract, carrying meaning or purely musical, all Sahel sounds have the timbre of the desert, that characteristic roundness. Here is Faso Nord, a sound testimony of a region that has become an extremely dangerous zone, confronted with the reality of terrorism.
"I cannot extract myself from this landscape. I stand at the edge.
The edge of the desert allows you to see the horizon. Like the edge of the sea.
The horizon is the seduction of the thing from a distance.
I cannot extract myself from this landscape. I am inside."
Hughes Germain's concern is the richness of our sound environment and the value of listening. By listening carefully, we could change nothing. But Hughes decides to change the course of sounds to make them heard differently: "Sometimes it only takes a little something to stimulate listening." His approach could be likened to that of an ethnographer or a journalist.
He captures with his microphones sounds that, coexisting with each other, become inaudible or uninteresting to us. This extracted and reworked sound material is "played back with what is happening": bodies, objects present, seasons... In contemporary dance creations, his music becomes a sensitive space, an enveloping and moving material. In the context of his sound interventions in urban or natural landscapes, Hughes Germain creates quasi-supernatural spaces. The musician's composition interacts directly with the collection of sounds in situ."
*
Musique du désert ou musique pour le désert, on peut dire les deux.
Dans ces régions du Nord du Burkina Faso, frontière du Mali et du Niger, l’éloignement et l’environnement naturel imposent un mode de vie sans les outils modernes de la ville. Le paysage sonore est forcément très lié aux éléments naturels. La population, peu nombreuse, est éparpillée çà et là en communautés réduites à quelques dizaines d’habitants.
Depuis de nombreuses années, Hughes Germain parcourt ces territoires au plus près et en saisit ses sonorités propres. Concrets ou abstraits, porteurs de sens ou purement musicaux, tous les sons du Sahel ont dans leur timbre la couleur du désert, cette rondeur caractéristique. Voici Faso Nord, témoignage sonore d’une région aujourd’hui devenue une zone extrêmement dangereuse, confrontée à la réalité du terrorisme.
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“Je ne peux pas m’extraire de ce paysage. Je me tiens au bord.
Le bord du désert permet de voir l’horizon. Comme le bord de mer.
L’horizon, c'est la séduction de la chose à distance.
Je ne peux pas m’extraire de ce paysage. Je suis dedans.”
------
Hughes Germain
Ce qui préoccupe Hughes Germain, c’est la richesse de notre environnement sonore et la valeur de l’écoute. A bien écouter, on pourrait ne rien changer. Mais Hughes décide de changer le cours des sons pour les donner à entendre autrement : « Il suffit parfois d’un petit rien pour susciter l’écoute ». Son approche pourrait ressembler à celle d’un ethnologue ou d’un journaliste.
Il capte avec ses micros des sons qui, cohabitant les uns avec les autres, nous sont rendus inaudibles ou sans intérêt. Cette matière sonore extirpée et retravaillée est « rejouée avec ce qui se passe » : les corps, les objets présents, les saisons… Dans les créations pour la danse contemporaine, sa musique devient un espace sensible, une matière enveloppante en mouvement. Dans le cadre de ses interventions sonores dans les paysages, urbains ou naturels, Hughes Germain crée des espaces quasi surnaturels. La composition du musicien entre en interaction directe avec la collecte des sons in situ.
credits
releases March 3, 2024
enregistré, composé et mixé par Hughes GERMAIN
autour de Gorom-Gorom / Déou / Ménégou / Markoye, Nord Burkina-Faso entre 2008 et 2010
14°22'09.8"N 0°17'26.9"W
GRM Paris / Studio Sonidole Le Relecq Kerhuon
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