Francois Bayle – L’Experience Acoustique
July 12th, 2008
Ping-ponging back and forth between decades, we once again journey back to the early ’70s. The noisy, recognizable sounds on disc one are in pretty marked contrast to more recent, lighter efforts like Théatre d’Ombres and Fabulae. The first piece, “L’Aventure du Cri,” opens with an empty realm of intense, buzzing static; incessant bird cries and electronic groans and growls. Part two adds in a frog and water splashes with the sound of a milling crowd. The final section contrasts greatly with the first two by way of some turbulent concrète collage: guitar stabs, sirens, whistles, crowds, electronic noise bursts and a pop song snippet.
“Le Language des Fleurs” starts off quiet and brooding, occasionally interrupted by electronic squeaks, chatters, groans, whistles and bird calls. The second section contains a half-minute blast of synth noise, while the third returns to the very austere atmospherics of far-off bird cries, somber synth tones, and distant beeping all over deep space. Very nice. Part four continues with lone whistles and distant, metallic voices occasionally overshadowed by rod, cymbal and electronic outbursts. The closing section busts out again with another chaotic collage full of bustling crowds, classical music, pop-song fragments, electronic noise bursts, wailing sirens, splashing water, exploding hand grenades, etc.
Disc two is divided up into three pieces. “La Preuve le Sens” contains a half-hour-plus suite of various electronic drones—high-pitched, low-pitched, fast-paced or pulsing slow—and is periodically overlaid with more bird calls; spare, percussive knocks; indecipherable vocal shards and other mysterious low-end interruptions and curtain shimmers. The final section reprises sounds from disc one and continues its concrète collage-like nature—even with decipherable spoken English vocals from Soft Machine’s Robert Wyatt plus more buzzing and rasping.
“L’Epreuve par les Son” is a shimmering, 25-minute drone work marked by rising and falling amplitude—the most minimal Bayle music so far, with potential for full-on, dream-sky transport. Plys of warm, glowing electronic veils float you as far away from your body as you could ever want to go. “La Philosophie du Non” closes out the set with some pristine bell tones and high-pitched feelings, interrupted by more collage-noise elements. The thick-ass booklet of notes contains vintage photos of the composer and newspaper clips from the era. Pretty much perfect.
Label: Magison Cycle Bayle Volumes 5-6 Catalog Number: MG CB 5694 Format: 2-CD Packaging: Double jewel case Tracks: CD 1: 8, CD 2: 7 Total Time: CD 1: 53:55, CD 2: 65:56 Country: France Released: 1994 Related Artists: Luc Ferrari, Bernard Parmegiani, Pierre Schaeffer More: Electro CD, Forced Exposure, Official, Wikipedia
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