Arcane Candy

Review coming later.

Label: Magison Cycle Bayle Volume 18 Catalog Number: MGCB 1804 Format: CD Packaging: Digi-Pak Tracks: 6 Total Time: 56:40 Country: France Released: 2004 Related Artists: Luc Ferrari, Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Schaeffer More: Electro CD, Forced Exposure, Official, Wikipedia

This is a proposed reissue of most of the Erosphere suite, including “La Fin du Bruit,” “L’Infini du Bruit,” “Tremblement de Terre Très Doux” and “Toupie Dans le Ciel.” I wonder if “Eros Bleu” and “Eros Noir” will be included? Also planned for this release is an 80-page book in French and English plus a CD-ROM.

Label: Magison Cycle Bayle Volume 16-17 Catalog Number: Unknown Format: 2-CD, CD-ROM Packaging: Unknown Tracks: 4 Total Time: Unknown Country: France Released: Forthcoming Related Artists: Luc Ferrari, Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Schaeffer More: Electro CD, Forced Exposure, Official, Wikipedia

This is a CD-EP re-issue of a track from Volume 1 called “Toupie Dans le Ciel” (1979), which is my favorite piece ever by this composer. Pleasantly washing and pinging electronics shiver loosely over a slowly charring, low-pitched rhythmic pulse for the most ecstatically head-napping music ever to caress a pillow. It’s interupted occasionally by some astonishing, downwardly circling aluminum reverberations.

Label: Magison Cycle Bayle Volume 16 Catalog Number: MG CB e102 Format: CD Packaging: Digi-Pak Tracks: 1 Total Time: 21:00 Country: France Released: 2002 Related Artists: Luc Ferrari, Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Schaeffer More: Electro CD, Forced Exposure, Official, Wikipedia

La Forme du Temps est un Cercle is an hour-long piece from 1999-2001, and another stunning tapestry full of running water, crowds, crickets, whistles, church bells, bird song, flutes and general hammering mayhem—all sandwiched, staggered and exploded—only to repeatedly coalesce into the most gently hovering, heavily filtered / reverberated dream curtain. The digi-pak wars continue with multi-panel spreads of Mr. Bayle’s lovely, circular crayon work.

Label: Magison Cycle Bayle Volume 15 Catalog Number: MG CB 1501 Format: CD Packaging: Digi-Pak Tracks: 5 Total Time: 59:30 Country: France Released: 2002 Related Artists: Luc Ferrari, Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Schaeffer More: Electro CD, Forced Exposure, Official, Wikipedia

Camera Oscura + Espaces Inhabitables is one of the better Francois Bayle discs of recent memory. Echoing footsteps, bouncing ping pong balls, oceans of rattling objects and typical obsessive attention to detail thoroughly enchant once again. Features the 38-minute “Camera Oscura” from 1976 (revised in 2000) and the 18-minute “Espaces Inhabitables” from 1967. “The work here is remixed from the barely restored original sounds.” The cover includes a nice photo of the composer standing in a zen garden.

Label: Magison Cycle Bayle Volume 14 Catalog Number: MG CB 1400 Format: CD Packaging: Digi-Pak Tracks: 15 Total Time: 56:40 Country: France Released: 2000 Related Artists: Luc Ferrari, Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Schaeffer More: Electro CD, Forced Exposure, Official, Wikipedia

“Jeita” (1970) originally appeared on an LP in the mythical Silver Series on Philips in the early ’70s. This piece was assembled out of sound material partly recorded in front of a live audience in an actual cave. “Straight away, I realized I had duplicated this large machine which turns time into form flowers by means of billions of busy and regular [water] drops—an immense clock—and I had created a man-size clock for the ear.” Heavy natural reverb, echoes, water droplets, site workers, instruments, etc. are all transformed into abstract hazes of the finest order, hence the quote, “This is not a cave!” Also including “L’infini Du Bruit” (1980-1999) and “Jeita—A Return” (1985-1999), this release comes in a deluxe fold-out digi-pak with old and new photos of the composer and the original cave concert.

Label: Magison Cycle Bayle Volume 13 Catalog Number: MG CB 1399 Format: CD Packaging: Digi-Pak Tracks: 20 Total Time: 56:30 Country: France Released: 1999 Related Artists: Luc Ferrari, Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Schaeffer More: Electro CD, Forced Exposure, Official, Wikipedia

Large, black, beautifully simple brush strokes are splayed across a delicate haze of pink and yellow on the double fold-out digi-pak of this new volume—François Bayle’s best cover artwork so far. “Morceaux de Ciels” (1997) is the most recent work available from this composer and is largely low-key and brooding when compared to the more frenetic, air-filled chaos of much of his previous output. “One of the remarkable features of this magnificent piece lies in the fact that it often moves in four-track blocks; and always, initially, in pairs. As a result, the listener, aware of an overall sound over four poles, finds himself with no alternative but to mentally reduce to one source the turbulent sounds he hears on four tracks. François Bayle may be compared to a watercolorist who provides an infinite number of nuances but refuses, in the midst of his experimentation, to set things down in a definitive state.”–Gerard Denizeau. “Theatre d’Ombres” has been reissued here from the out-of-print Volume 2.

Label: Magison Cycle Bayle Volume 12 Catalog Number: MG CB 1298 Format: CD Packaging: Digi-Pak Tracks: 3 Total Time: 65:10 Country: France Released: 1998 Related Artists: Luc Ferrari, Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Schaeffer More: Electro CD, Forced Exposure, Official, Wikipedia

The first EP-length entry in the Cycle Bayle Series is this 22-minute piece from 1985 in a nice digipak. “Can we hear the pure movement that rouses a sound being? Perceive this movement in its very purity? First, it is necessary to feel this being in its ‘beingness.’ A virtual immobility, a passive state—a simple dissipation; a smooth, irrational evaporation. Suddenly an idea emerges, fragile and bewildered. It is immediately recognizable thanks to its quivering motion; its pulsed irregularity; its excited, ignited state. The uneveness produced by its gentle convolutions communicates to the listener a constant prickliness that awakens a current of attention, a tension. The being’s inner propulsion is perceptible only on certain precise, well-proportioned conditions of disappearance and reappearance and of interplay involving rapid physiological rhythms as minute and unconscious as the blink of an eye. The intention inspiring the motion begins to become legible in the scrolls of calligraphy. What is the point of saying anything more? The being becomes a phenomenon. It grips me, becomes the fear I experience, the hunger I feel. I would like to understand its forms of love.”—François Bayle

Label: INA-GRM Cycle Bayle Volume 11 Catalog Number: INA E 5009 CD Format: 2-CD Packaging: Digi-Pak Tracks: 1 Total Time: 22:01 Country: France Released: 1998 Related Artists: Luc Ferrari, Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Schaeffer More: Electro CD, Forced Exposure, Official, Wikipedia

Continuing to fill in gaps of the proposed complete Cycle Bayle Series of 18 volumes, this impressive double digipak houses a sprawling set of music from the early ’80s. Like the CD reissue of Erosphère, this pak and booklet also feature many photos of the composer in a live, smoke-filled, laser-lit setting. Starting off disc one, “Grandeur Nature” (1980) is a thick, 32-minute flag of quietly churning, ghostly atmosphere. Moaning electronics with high-pitched pings, fluttering skyscapes, insects, birds, low-rumbles, sea-bottom churns and other outdoor ambience coalesce into the listener with the greatest of ease. “Imagine an object that is coming to visit us from many light years away. Journey. Approach. Images of speed. Soundscapes. First contact. Observations. Uneasy movements. Departures and discreet disappearances.”

“Paysage, Personage, Nuage” (1980) is a quiet foray into non-descript zones—teeming with dull stabs, meditative realms, an occasional insect and vocal slices. “The object, motionless, far away, is connected. The scene is bare. A desert—an oasis perhaps. Vocal manifestations, then suddenly, a commentary. My voice giving a speech. It comes in snatches, like interference on a radio. The scene continues. Interference from electronic mirages. It seems to be burning and crackling like the film from a great celluloid image.” “Voyage Au Centre De La Tete” (1981) opens up disc two with a very loud, churning rhythmic pulse and concrète knocks. After a brief pause, loud ‘n’ swirling masses gradually give way to more placid, quirky meditations. A vigorously chopped field of vocal shards gets smeared all around your mind—eventually fading away into shy areas. “Voyage To The Center Of The Head,” indeed. “Two sound-images come together and begin to converse and respond, adopting one another as two fragments of the same thing: the transformed sound of chanting in a monastery and the natural sound of a woman at home making coffee (inside the coffee pot versus the center of the head!)”

“Le Sommeil d’Euclide” (1983) begins with lightweight shimmers interspersed with loud, electronic interruptions. A quiet wash with beeps, pings, jerky strip vocals and concrète sounds is sometimes interrupted by filtered chaos. “Two forms occupy the auditory space of this work. The first is radically modified to transcend perception, thus creating an illusion space, a phantasmagorical effect. The second (including the substantial fragments into which it is broken) is roughly shaken up; the ear can make out the degrees of order and disorder that are intentionally added. The transformation of the first form (derived from a short sample with a creaking pulley) consists of variously transposed progressive elongations and minute, descending transitions. The second form consists of samples of song and sounds accompanying the act of raising water with an Indian noria. The way the creaking of the pulley is reflected in the singing of the water-drawers already constitutes, I believe, a natural transformation. The object moves in its own particular way, following a logic to which we shall one day, no doubt, find the key, since music already provides us with a certain intuition.”

“Lumiere Ralentie” (1983) ends the 2-CD set with more loud, swirling masses that give way to a more subdued 21 minutes of deep space ruminations that are once again ruptured with rising amplitude near the end. “The object has become wind. Half the duration of this piece is taken up by a pattern of interlacing winds with as little phonic resistance as possible. Melodies that are understood, variations in speed, gusts, lulls, whirlwinds and air movements that may be conveyed by sound (speed-light). Then everything freezes, in straight lines, layers, stripes, projected colors, loops, with flying objects slowly passing through, observing. Are they listening? Change of scale. A peaceful night. Suspension. But we must end. The object has to leave. Enough information. Or is it’s energy spent? No time to waste. It goes, leaving behind just a trace—which soon evaporates.”—François Bayle

Label: Magison Cycle Bayle Volumes 9-10 Catalog Number: MG CB 9097 Format: 2-CD Packaging: Double-Digi-Pak Tracks: CD 1: 5, CD 2: 12 Total Time: CD 1: 56:08, CD 2: 63:15 Country: France Released: 1997 Related Artists: Luc Ferrari, Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Schaeffer More: Electro CD, Forced Exposure, Official, Wikipedia

Volume 8 contains one work in three parts from the mid ’90s. “Baton de Pluie” (1993-94) starts out with a dense power drone and stops abruptly for almost 20 minutes of intricately tossing and turning wind instruments, rain sticks, and plenty of Bayle’s signature pinging, chiming and flowing electronic shawls. “The relative austerity of L’Expérience Acoustique has given way to a style that is generous and poetic. The space has broadened and the rain stick is now surrounded by elegant garlands. The result is almost reminiscent of runs on a baroque organ. We recognize the play of the flute that is so dear to the author, the cascading sounds of glass, the furtive breaths, the shivers, the glissandi in a space that is inhabited, alive. The piece is teaming with ideas, yet it gives an impression of perfect coherence, not so much because of any apparent structure as because of an admirable sense of sequence and coordination.”—Jacques Bonnaure

In “La Fleur Future” (1994), the peaceful timbres of track one give way to somewhat more disturbed collage work. Literal hand-washing laundry sounds with far-off people chattering interspersed with some mysterious mellow melody give way to minutes of more pleasant puzzles. “More incredible still than a heavenly flower or a dream flower is the flower of the future—that contradictory flower made up of atoms that are now in other places and whose arrangement does not yet exist.”—J.L. Borges. The short, 10-minute “Inventions” (1995) closes out the program with another rainstick workout, fading in with some low-end rumble and metallic pings almost reminiscent of Xenakis’ “Diamorphoses” but with more playful sound thrown around on top. As usual, the cover is adorned with a beautiful drawing by the multi-talented composer himself, featuring a colorful hand floating in a cloud of purple lines.

Label: Magison Cycle Bayle Volume 8 Catalog Number: MG CB 0896 Format: CD Packaging: Digi-Pak Tracks: 3 Total Time: 42:41 Country: France Released: 1996 Related Artists: Luc Ferrari, Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Schaeffer More: Electro CD, Forced Exposure, Official, Wikipedia