SÉBASTIEN ROUX & VINCENT EPPLAY – Concatenative Mu

Brocoli

Everything can be done in music today with a laptop; abominable to majestic, funny to pathetic. Roux and Epplay chose to stand on the right side of the fence, their multicoloured variety of musique concrete representing a valid example of how good taste and astuteness go a long way when an artist (or two) decide to present a work in a field where coming out with something innovative is always a problem. The utopian world to which every electroacoustic composer ideally aspires has become relatively easy to inhabit, thanks to the advancement of technology; what once was the fruit of hundreds of hours spent in a studio is now reachable with a dozen of clicks of the mouse. It’s at that point that the cleverest musicians establish a difference, separating themselves from the mass through bright-minded, or even shocking decisions. I’m not saying that Concatenative Mu startled me to death, but there wasn’t a moment in 38 minutes in which I felt tired of listening. The stuff works: it is painted with abundance of colours, rhythmically challenging, comprising unexpected turns (including amusing vocal utterances) and mixing sacred and profane or, if you will, irony and seriousness. Listen attentively and get overwhelmed; use it in the headphones when reading, or zapping while stretched on your couch, and an unconscious stimulation of a cataleptic brain is guaranteed (unless you’re gazing at the Arab Hotline channels, that is).