by and with Jean-Philippe Gross
by and with Stéphane Garin, Jean-Philippe Gross
Shiver Lung 2
by Ashley Fure
with Jeanne Larrouturou
Affine plane
In geometry, the concept of the Affine plane was invented in order to be able to talk about parallel lines without being encumbered by metric notions such as the distance between two points or the angle between two lines. With an expanded set, Stéphane Garin and Jean-Philippe Gross set out to renew the playground and aesthetics developed in Dénombrement.
Plan affine takes as its starting point rhythmic sequences created with a synthesizer. These electronic sequences (loops/patterns) were recorded, notated and arranged for percussion. The two musicians created links and developed shapes and patterns by contrasting the machine's mechanical signals with their reproduction by the percussionists. The sequences generated fed into the composition, and the structure took shape naturally, starting with an electronic movement that fades away as the piece progresses, leaving the percussion in its simplest form, supported here and there by frequencies or a microphone.
The electronic part is fed by the percussion, which itself is modelled on the synthesizer loops that inspired the composition of this piece. The choice of percussion instruments is limited. We concentrated on woodwinds: wood block and mokubio, as well as chimes, acoustic frequency generators that are either rubbed or percussed. This choice is determined by the proximity of the timbres to the electronic sounds and the aesthetic continuity of our collaboration.
In addition, we added electronic pads to concretely materialize the transition from electronics to acoustics. Working in mirror-image mode enabled us to confront the organic nature of acoustic instruments with the intrinsic rhythmic mechanics of machines. The piece exploits the focal point of percussion. A background image that moves within an evolving, cannibalistic structure, where each movement feeds the next.
Count
For their first collaboration, Stéphane Garin (percussion) and Jean-Philippe Gross (electronics, diffusion) open wide the doors and windows to new soundscapes, where noises, atmospheres and instruments are subtly assembled. An inexhaustible composition, both fascinating and playful.
Jean-Philippe Gross and Stéphane Garin met in 2015 while collaborating within the Dedalus ensemble. Soon, they were laying the groundwork for a project that Jean-Philippe Gross had had in mind for some time: a percussion-based piece that would highlight different listening planes and play on the complementarity between live playing and its fixed, amplified version. A cut, direct piece that would displace the percussion and open up to its environment: Dénombrement.
In mathematics, enumeration is the determination of the number of elements in a whole. There are three, in this piece that Stéphane Garin and Jean-Philippe Gross have patiently assembled over the years: percussion, electronics and field recording.
This is exactly what we hear in Dénombrement , and much more besides: by taking percussion out of the studio or concert hall, the two musicians bring it back changed, into a new space that is that of the loudspeakers or your brain. There, they recreate a language and landscapes, sometimes uneven, sometimes straight, but always densely inhabited by their creators, caught in the very act of their practice. Words, snatches of discussion, trial and error, like a work of art growing before us.
And yet, it's a precision mechanism that's at play here, once the sounds, research and accidents have been tamed and integrated. If the magic of a trick is exhausted by revealing its tricks, listing the instruments, treatments and locations that nourished Dénombrement has the opposite effect: it sharpens and densifies the listening experience. In his studio, Jean-Philippe Gross created the electronic parts and treatments. During various sessions and residencies, Stéphane Garin played wood, metal and hide percussion instruments. There is also "situational percussion", when Jean-Philippe Gross left the microphones running, at times when Stéphane Garin was moving, sorting, tidying and disturbing his instruments.
Captured, reworked and arranged in this way, the elements of these ensembles form a coherent piece, at once very direct and rich in numerous listening planes (on headphones, it's an immersion). While the short, frenzied opening cavalcade of Floor tom and electronics takes the work into territory once explored by label Warp, Dénombrement unfolds in a different way: In between takes with mokubio plays on a cinematic atmosphere and unfolding, where the ear swings between quasi-metronomic percussion and intriguing soundscapes. Things are happening, birds are flying, the wind is blowing. With a delightful taste for play and adventure, Stéphane Garin and Jean-Philippe Gross go on to experiment with repetitive music, drone and electroacoustics, but define their own rules. They create, saturate, purify, capture and tame sounds into a new language, the fruit of a rare balance between acoustics and electronics.
Shiver Lung 2
Inside each enclosure is a cone whose operation is very simple: it rises and falls. As it does so, the cone hits air, which in turn hits more air, then bounces off walls, floors, objects and bodies, and finally, if you're close enough, hits your eardrum.
At the heart of "Shiver Lung 2" are two subwoofer cones that do their job: rise and fall. But here, for most of the piece, the subwoofers move so slowly that you can't hear the sound they produce. The performer slides his palms, fingernails, chains, pieces of paper, rattles and chimes over the surface of these subwoofers as they tremble, drawing them into the realm of audibility through touch.
"Shiver Lung 2" was composed for Ross Karre and premiered at Issue "Project Room" in New York on September 29, 2017.
Delegated production
La Muse en Circuit - CNCM
Coproduction
CCAM, scène nationale de Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy ; Vu D'un Oeuf - Festival Densités ; Association Fragment ; Association Eichen
Residence support
The Wind Tunnel (Rezé); Atabal (Biarritz)
Supporters
Drac Grand Est (project assistance); Grand Est Region (creation assistance)
Jean-Philippe Gross
composer and improviser
Founder of Eich records and Fragment, is originally a drummer. Since 2001, he has been active in the field of electronic, electro-acoustic and improvised music. He has composed music for theater, dance and performance, as well as for contemporary ensembles.
At the crossroads of electronic and instrumental music, he develops a physical relationship with sound, playing on ruptures and acoustic phenomena. In concert, he collaborates with Stéphane Garin (Dénombrement, Plan Affine), Jean-Luc Guionnet (Angle), eRikm, Marc Baron, Axel Dörner, Francisco Meirino, Jérôme Noetinger, John Hegre (Black Packers), Clare Cooper (Nevers)...
Refusing systematism, Jean-Philippe Gross explores extremes to take advantage of a wide range of possibilities, paying particular attention to timbre, grain and sound quality, even when rough.
Stéphane Garin
percussionist and composer
Stéphane Garin has been charting a highly personal course in the French musical landscape since the early 2000s. Ensemble 0, a collective gravitating in the sphere of minimalism - co-founded in 2004 with Sylvain Chauveau and Joël Merah - is his main project, still active today.
Also a member of Dedalus, a contemporary music ensemble directed by Didier Aschour, and of AUM, the large ensemble of the sound research collective audio-lab, Stéphane Garin can play in a wide variety of musical universes (Pascal Comelade, Ryoji Ikeda, Pierre-Yves Macé, Carl Craig...) and formats. Since 2017, at the Centrifugeuse in Pau, he has organized La Nuit Couchée, a collective listening session lying down until the early hours of the morning, once a year.
Ashley Fure
composer
Ashley Fure (b. 1982) is an American composer of acoustic and electroacoustic concert music, as well as intermedia installations. Described as "raw, elemental" and "richly satisfying" by the New York Times, her work explores the kinetic source of sound, highlighting the muscular act of musical creation and the chaotic behaviors of raw acoustic matter. She holds a doctorate in music composition from Harvard University, as well as degrees from IRrcam (Cursus 1 and 2), the Oberlin Conservatory and the Interlochen Arts Academy. Fure was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University in 2014 and joined the Department of Music at Dartmouth College as Assistant Professor of Sound Arts in September 2015.
Jeanne Larrouturou
percussionist
Jeanne studied percussion in Bayonne with A. Gastinel, then in Tours with J.-B. Couturier, before entering the Haute École de Musique de Genève in 2011 in the class of Y. Brustaux, P. Spiesser, C. Delannoy and C. Delannoy. Brustaux, P. Spiesser, C. Delannoy and C. Gastaldin, where she obtained a Bachelor's and a Master's degree in pedagogy. In 2018, she graduated from the Musikhochschule Basel with a second master's degree, specializing in contemporary music, in the class of M. Svoboda, M. Weiss and J. Henneberger. Her artistic activity focuses mainly on chamber music and transdisciplinary encounters. In 2011, she joined the Ensemble Batida, pianos, keyboards and percussion, which develops its concert-concepts in Switzerland and abroad. In 2013, she took part in the creation of two ensembles in Geneva: the trio 46°N (percussion - musical theater) and the Ensemble Caravelle (vocals, flute, viola, piano, percussion - musical performances). She extended her activities to German-speaking Switzerland in 2017 with the creation in Basel of the trio Stop, Drop and Roll (guitar, flute, percussion - musical theater). Through her various projects, and collaborations with renowned composers, she aims to explore the contemporary music repertoire, and take part in its creation. She is particularly interested in experimenting with original concert formats, and since 2018 has been co-directing with Kevin Juillerat the Fracanaüm season of sound creations in Lausanne, whose programming opens up new avenues of exploration in today's music.
Thore Warland
musician and drummer
An active musician, drummer and concert organizer on the Norwegian scene since the early 2010s, he has toured Europe, Asia and the United States with the bands Golden oriole, Staer, Tralteneller Upult and Bruning Axis. His percussion work is characterized by complex, circular rhythmic patterns.
Friche la Belle de Mai (Petit Plateau)
41 Jobin Street13003
Marseille
DURATION
approx. 1h30
RATES PER CONCERT
Full: 8€
Reduced: 6€*
*Young people aged 12-25, students, jobseekers, people on minimum social benefits, intermittent workers, senior citizens aged 65 and over - on presentation of proof.
Free admission for loyalty card holders Modulations (by reservation only)
PRATICAL INFORMATION
Latecomers will not be admitted to the auditorium, as some shows - at the request of the artistic teams - do not tolerate late entry.
TICKETS FROM 1/09/25
Online: gmem-cncm.mapado.com
By e-mail: billetterie@gmem.org
WITHIN THE MODULATIONS
What are the Modulations?
Concerts, performances, regular events...
In other words, a season organized by the GMEM.
1st semester dates:
16/09/25- 21/10 - 18/11 - 14/12 - 16/12
2nd semester dates:
20/01/26- 17/02 - 17/03 - 22/03 - 14/04 - 10/05
Jean-Philippe Gross
electronics, composition
Jeanne Larrouturou,
Stéphane Garin,
Thore Warland
percussion, composition
PROGRAM
Plan affine (2023)
by and with Jean-Philippe Gross
piece for percussion and electronics
35 min.
Dénombrement (2017 - 2019)
by and with Stéphane Garin,
Jean-Philippe Gross
30 min.
Shiver Lung 2 (2017)
by Ashley Fure
with Jeanne Larrouturou
piece for percussion and electronics