Placidum — Notes

Leonardo Da Vinci

2026-08-06T21:30:00+01:00

I sensi sono terrestri, la ragione sta fuor di quelli quando contempla.

Upper West Side

2026-07-17T21:30:00+01:00

Bonnard: The Complete Graphic Work
Francis Bouvet · introduction by Antoine Terrasse · translated from the French by Jane Brenton
Rizzoli International Publications, New York, 1981

Cézanne: Finished – Unfinished
Felix Baumann · Evelyn Benesch · Walter Feilchenfeldt · Klaus Albrecht Schröder (eds.)
Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit, 2000
— Kunstforum Wien, 20 January – 25 April 2000 · Kunsthaus Zürich, 5 May – 30 July 2000

The Drawings of Bronzino
Carmen C. Bambach · Janet Cox-Rearick · George R. Goldner
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York · Yale University Press, New Haven, 2010
— The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 20 January – 18 April 2010

Gustav Klimt: The Drawings
Marian Bisanz-Prakken · foreword by Klaus Albrecht Schröder and James Cuno · edited by the Albertina, Vienna — Hirmer, Munich, 2012
— Albertina, Vienna, 14 March – 17 June 2012 · The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 3 July – 23 September 2012

Leonardo da Vinci 1452–1519: The Design of the World
Pietro C. Marani · Maria Teresa Fiorio (eds.)
Skira, Milan, 2015
— Palazzo Reale, Milan, 15 April – 19 July 2015

Etel Adnan, Écrire dans une langue étrangère

2026-06-10T21:30:00+01:00

« Mon esprit était ouvert. Je compris qu'on pouvait se déplacer dans diverses directions, que l'esprit, à la différence du corps, peut aller en même temps dans plusieurs dimensions, que je pouvais aller non seulement sur quelques plans mais à l'intérieur d'un monde mental sphérique et que ce que nous voyons comme des problèmes peut aussi être un bloc de tensions opérant de façon mystérieuse et dépassant notre entendement. »

Kawabata

2026-05-16T21:30:00+01:00

Dans le bois qui s'était autrefois découpé sur un crépuscule couleur pêche, la mésange chantait toujours.

1953.

Third passage

2026-05-02T21:30:00+01:00

PLUM8.

Blues Profundo
Cobalt
Ronces
Sufficiently
Espoir
Fontana
Kama
La Serre
Romance

2026-04-18

2026-04-18T21:30:00+01:00

有一种东西，它会在某个夏天的夜晚像风一样突然袭来，让你措不及防，无法安宁，与你形影相随，挥之不去，我不知道那是什么，只能称它为爱情。有一种东西，它会在某个夏天的夜晚像风一样突然袭来，让你措不及防，无法安宁，与你形影相随，挥之不去，我不知道那是什么，只能称它为爱情。

余虹日记

Woman in the Dunes

2026-03-27T21:30:00+01:00

Лев Николаевич Толстой

2026-03-22T21:30:00+01:00

« Nous pensons que dès qu'on nous sort des sentiers familiers, tout est perdu; c'est alors seulement que commence quelque chose de nouveau et de bon. Tant qu'il y a de la vie, il y a du bonheur. Il y a encore beaucoup, beaucoup devant nous. »

Premier Printemps

2026-03-21T21:30:00+01:00

Abel Gekiere - Caroline
Michael Kleniec - Obadiah
Charles Curtis - Song (Terry Jennings, 1960)

Kafka's Leopards in the Temple

2026-03-15T21:30:00+01:00

Leopards break into the temple and drink to the dregs what is in the sacrificial pitchers; this is repeated over and over again; finally it can be calculated in advance, and it becomes a part of the ceremony.

Second chances are always equivocal, uncertain in their consequences, and ambiguous in their meaning. They are never an uncomplicated good; they never release us into a predictable narrative of what happens next.(...) What is recovered in second chances is the future, the absorption or transformation of the disruption into the ritual. — Adam Phillips

Die XXII. Februarii

2026-02-22T21:30:00+01:00

« You speak a language that I understand not. My life stands in the level of your dreams. »

He replies, « Your actions are my dreams. »

Die VI. Januarii

2026-01-06T21:30:00+01:00

Sebald:

"It was to this sort of phenomenon, to these spurious incursions of the unreal into the real world, to certain effects of light in a landscape spread out before us, to the reflection in a beloved person's eye, that our deepest feelings were kindled, or what we took for such."

Die XXVIII. Decembris

2025-12-28T21:30:00+01:00

Sebald, Austerlitz:

"Alphonso once remarked that it seemed to him as if all the colours had faded, as if everything beautiful was disappearing and could only be found in places where no one looked for it anymore, in underwater gardens, dozens of fathoms below the surface of the sea."

Die XVI. Decembris

2025-12-16T21:30:00+01:00

Nous savons qu'une vraie rencontre a eu lieu quand il y a en nous un changement. Nous avons fait de la place pour l'autre et pour une part de nous-mêmes jusqu'alors inconnue.

Il ne peut y avoir de rencontre que dans l'inattendu. La beauté est toujours bizarre. L'émergence soudaine d'une présence.

Die XI. Decembris

2025-12-11T21:30:00+01:00

Dylan:

"Folk music was a reality of a more brilliant dimension. It exceeded all human understanding, and if it called out to you, you could disappear and be sucked into it. It was so real, so more true to life than life itself. It was life magnified."

Sebald:

"The study of history, so Hilary's thesis ran, was merely a matter of pre-formed images fixed inside our heads, on which we keep our eyes while the truth lies elsewhere, somewhere apart, in a place no one has yet discovered."

Istanbul

2025-11-03T21:30:00+01:00

Dylan: "A folk song has over a thousand faces and you must meet them all if you want to play this stuff."

Pantelleria

2025-10-21T21:30:00+01:00

Rûmi, Le livre du dedans:

"Comment pourrait-on parvenir à la perle en regardant simplement la mer ? Il faut un plongeur pour trouver la perle."

Óscar Hahn:

Les jours passeront comme passent tous les mauvais jours de la vie. Les vents néfastes faibliront. Le sang de ta plaie stagnera. L'âme errante regagnera son nid. Ce qui hier était perdu reparaîtra.

Et tu diras face à la mer: Comment ai-je pu inondé sans boussole et perdu arriver à bon port toutes voiles déchirées?

Une voix te dira: Tu ne le sais donc pas? Le vent qui a brisé tes vaisseaux est le même que celui qui fait voler les mouettes.

Films: Lou Ye — Suzhou River. Wong Kar Wai — Fallen Angels. Jacques Rivette — La Belle Noiseuse. Tarkovsky — The Sacrifice. Cassavetes — Love Streams. Stephen Kijak — Scott Walker: 30 Century Man.

Taste of Cherry: "My love I am flying off come to me, I'm hounded from my friend's garden, come to me. Tell me. We barely know each other. You go, I'm your friend. You stay, I'm your friend."

Die XVIII. Octobris

2025-10-18T21:30:00+01:00

Dylan, Chronicles:

"Songs, to me, were more important than just light entertainment. They were my preceptor and guide into some altered consciousness of reality, some different republic, some liberated republic."

Die XVI. Octobris

2025-10-16T21:30:00+01:00

Hassell, Atmospherics:

"See music as a painting with layers, retouchings, second thoughts, with new layers erased in places so that the under-painting shows through."

Pentimento — The reappearance in a painting of images, forms, or strokes that have been changed and are used as elements of a final composition.

"Vertical listening: listening to 'what's happening NOW' — letting your inner ear parse out the entire spectrum of sound, asking yourself what kinds of 'shapes' are being manifested."

"I've gone past the stage where questioning the nature of music, of sound, was the subject matter of my work, and am content to simply try to make beautiful things according to certain rules."

The Inner Sleeve by Chino Amobi, async (The Wire 501)

2025-10-08T21:30:00+01:00

"What begins as an ordinary view suddenly slips into the uncanny, where the familiar texture of dirt and clay mutates into bands of digital signal. It is a vision of the everyday recast as science fiction, where the mundane acquires a preternatural glow. That, to me, is the genius of Sakamoto's visual and sonic language: he reveals how the ordinary is always already strange. A potted plant is no longer simply a container of earth but a portal into another order of time, a site where memory and perception collapse into radiant streams."

Die XXVII. Septembris

2025-09-27T21:30:00+01:00

Odyssea

2025-08-11T21:30:00+01:00

«Dernier aperçu d'un avenir impossible»

Stuart Isacoff — New Harmony of Parts

2025-08-10T21:30:00+01:00

"So, like the painters, musicians searched for an accommodation between the ideal and the practical, for a way to reformulate the proportions between the musical tones so they would produce desirable effects as they coalesced on the canvas of time. They wanted a new harmony of parts. They needed a recipe for musical perspective."

The answer was temperament.

Die XV. Junii

2025-06-15T21:30:00+01:00

Beautiful Situation

2025-05-22T21:30:00+01:00

PLUM7.

De retour du Japon

2025-05-09T21:30:00+01:00

Yoshino.

"Il est dit que la vie est un flux, une rivière, un voyage. Nous avançons perpétuellement et il n'y a pas de destination."

The past can be a weight, but also a well of fresh water —

In the bathroom at Yoshino, crouching, helped by turquoise touches, I remembered the small bathroom of my childhood. It felt slightly outside the apartment. This simplicity is still there, part of me.

Otto Benson — Another Long Day

In the plane — Films: A Real Pain. Death Stranding. Listening: Terre Thaemlitz — Elevatorium.

Blue On Velvet

2025-04-15T21:30:00+01:00

Coltrane — Crescent. Gabor Szabo — Galatea's Guitar, Fire Dance, My Foolish Heart. The Doors — Indian Summer. Grateful Dead — Dark Star. Eden Ahbez — The Wanderer. Chico Hamilton Quintet — Blue Sands. Paul Motian Trio — It Should've Happened a Long Time Ago. Nana Mouskouri — No Moon at All. Velvet Underground — I Found a Reason. Sly and the Family Stone — In Time. Santana — Evil Ways. Fairuz — Le Beirut. Marianne Faithfull — Corrine Corina. Mel Tormé — The Windmills of Your Mind. Peggy Lee — Is That All There Is?. Vanilla Fudge — Keep Me Hangin' On. The Wings — Let Me Roll It. The Beatles — Dear Prudence. Bob Dylan — One More Cup of Coffee. Scott Walker — It's Raining Today. Jacques Brel — Les Marquises, Je suis un soir d'été. Yo La Tengo — Nowhere Near. Lewis Taylor — Lucky. Marvin Gaye — I Want You, Come Live with Me Angel. Alain Bashung — Kalabougie (rough mix).

Brussels — BRDCST

2025-04-06T21:30:00+01:00

Church of Notre Dame aux Riches Claires, curated by Stetson. Raphael Rogiński. The Handover.

The day before: Abel Ghekiere «In de verte, dit uitzicht»

Futurewaves

2025-04-02T21:30:00+01:00

▶ Futurewaves
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Hylics

2025-02-09T21:30:00+01:00

Madrid

2024-12-01T21:30:00+01:00

Several days immersed in the intrigues of Hideo Kojima. Stop trying to understand, let yourself be carried.

Goya's Black Paintings. Incomplete, removed from their natural state, reinterpreted. Yet the balance is there, the nuances magnificent.

"If you look for a meaning, you will miss everything that happens." — Nietzsche

Joshua Edelman at Central Cafe (student of Barry Harris, played with Chuck Israel).

Cuban music: Instruments interchange roles. Percussive and tonal. Rhythm constant but never repeating. Dance crystallizes melodies, the pulsing heart, grants harmonic freedom. Leaving tonality without losing communion.

Making music — not propositions about music, but the most complete form there is. Melodies, textures, harmonic progressions, narration, organic and dense rhythms, emergent spaces. Memories. A song, a piece.

Bucolico — No more eclecticism, no standards, no stylistic posturing. A richness of evocations, yes, but one single recurring purpose. The ability to name.

Perfect Days

2024-11-25T21:30:00+01:00

Kondo a kondo / Ima wa ima

"Ophir is the arrival to the safe place, now I need to bring all things past, those of great value, through the desert."

Livre du Réel

2024-11-15T21:30:00+01:00

"We are gardeners tending a plot at the back of our house. We bring what we have, what we find along the way — to magnify it, elevate it, twist it in sometimes surprising ways."

"We must accept the cracks in our body. We live inside the garden — we see it grow as much as we feel it grow."

HKx3

2024-11-11T21:30:00+01:00

HKCR

2024-11-04T21:30:00+01:00

▶ HKCR
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Lucy Railton at Presences

2024-11-01T21:30:00+01:00

Organic then synthesized — like air displacing. Intense frequency selection. Boomerangs around space.

Laurel Halo & Leila Bordreuil at Petits Bains

2024-10-14T21:30:00+01:00

Spectral harmonies, cohesive sonic ensemble. Underwater landscapes.

Dilo Dos Veces

2024-09-05T21:30:00+01:00

▶ Dilo Dos Veces
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Last summer

2024-08-11T21:30:00+01:00

XLR8R

2024-06-09T21:30:00+01:00

▶ XLR8R
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PLUM6. Neptune

2024-05-17T21:30:00+01:00

As time goes by our life is simplified — PLUM6.

Steve Albini

2024-05-09T21:30:00+01:00

"I've always detested mechanized dance music, its stupid simplicity, the clubs where it was played, the people who went to those clubs, the drugs they took, the shit they liked to talk about, the clothes they wore, the battles they fought amongst each other..."

The Jaguar

2024-05-03T21:30:00+01:00

Wanting to refine guitar approach. Looking for a Telecaster to perform in New York. Ended up with a vintage Jaguar — very acoustic, quite heavy. Indian feel.

That same day: Bi Gan's Kaili Blues at the theatre.

De retour à Paris

2024-04-27T21:30:00+01:00

Lecture de Sebald, Les Émigrants, au spa du RM. Bi Gan vu le week-end précédent.

"As I finished reading, I was searching for the truth of these stories. I wanted deeply to believe in them, for they were proof to me of the beauty of the real. Despite the speculative and composite nature of Sebald's writings, the authenticity of the stories remains intact for me."

Les personnages sont habités de fantômes, ils cherchent sans trouver. L'éloignement spatial et temporel de leur patrie leur fait ressentir un manque qui dépasse, de manière métaphysique, leur condition vécue. Ils ressentent la hauteur et la profondeur de la vie, de l'existence, et se savent alors relativement immobiles dans cette immensité. Une hypersensibilité à la vérité et au possible.

Je crois profondément au poids du passé lointain. Les humains et leur esprit, n'ayant aucune limite, laissent des sillages par leurs actions. Notre situation dans le sud de la France nous était d'autant plus intenable que nous y sommes revenus à chaque génération et ce depuis quatre générations. Nous n'y étions pas de simples étrangers mais des messagers à notre insu.

Sans que je le sache, mes terres d'accueil devinrent virtuelles, résidant dans mes pensées, elles étaient mon vrai point d'ancrage et m'emmenèrent très loin du présent et de la réalité.

Le temps passant ma vie s'est simplifiée et éclaircie.

Film: The Scent of Green Papaya

NIVHEK at Presences

2024-03-30T21:30:00+01:00

ENGINE / approx. 35' with a film by Takashi Makino

Sounds of trains and cars from drag races at Portland International Raceway / North Portland rail lines; synthesizer and other electronic components. Liz Harris was joined by Danish musician and composer Astrid Sonne on viola.

ENGINE was born from a ten-year obsession with the noise of engines. The sound of excess, power, sex, destruction, capitalism, oil becoming atmospheric pollution, transformation, life. The guttural bass and revolutions mirror organic rhythms—imitating heartbeats, breathing, rushing blood. A spiraling ode to symbiotic decay.

James Ensor

2024-03-07T21:30:00+01:00

Bozar, Brussels

Anvers — Blauwe Zaal
Jakob Bro / Midori Takada / Jesper Zeuthen / Marilyn Mazur.

Jamie James — Music Of The Spheres

2024-01-17T21:30:00+01:00

"It was in the music of this hero that Romantic anthropo-centrism first glimmers forth. In Beethoven originates the paradigm of the artistic personality, difficult and deeply individualistic, as well as the first strong emphasis on the human scale in the content of the music."

"Music was no less metaphysical after Beethoven, but the search for transcendence turned inward. Divinity was to be found in the spirit of man, not in a remote and theoretical cosmos that could only be comprehended by increasingly abstruse mathematics. This earthward shift resulted in a paradox: as the emphasis was transferred to the human scale, the human agent—the artist—came to be regarded as superhuman."

Pythagoras

2023-12-03T21:30:00+01:00

Music was number and the cosmos was music.

Lost quote, Midori Takada?

2023-11-10T21:30:00+01:00

When I play, I strive to open my heart and senses to incorporate all elements present—be it the space, the audience, or nature—into myself. So, the concept of nature, when I mention it, goes beyond common associations like forests or jungles; it's rooted in more abstract and cosmic perspectives.

Rick Rubin — The Creative Act

2023-08-03T21:30:00+01:00

"Nature transcends our tendencies to label and classify, to reduce and limit. The natural world is unfathomably more rich, interwoven, and complicated than we are taught, and so much more mysterious and beautiful."

"The closer we can get to the natural world, the sooner we start to realise we are not separate. And that when we create, we are not just expressing our unique individuality, but our seamless connection to an infinite oneness."

"It is said the ocean provides a closer reflection of who we are than any mirror."

New Morning

2023-07-18T21:30:00+01:00

Julian Lage, Jorge Roeder, Joey Baron — chemistry, warmth.

Interior Rooms

2023-07-01T21:30:00+01:00

PLUM5.

Gulbenkian, Lisbon

2023-06-24T21:30:00+01:00

There is no inner path without an outer perimeter. The path connects the practical and public dimension of life (the outer perimeter) to the mystical knowledge of divine reality (the luminous and ineffable centre).

One more cup of coffee

2023-06-17T21:30:00+01:00

Mayo Hubert and another Japanese player. We ended up taking a cab to find a new bar when the one we were in closes. Standards after standards, they don't stop, sometimes his wife sings. Rarely heard such energy from acoustic instruments.... fills me persistent joy....

▶ nuit avec mayo
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The wind, like the sea, possesses an infinite number of voices. Both are broad-band sounds and within the breadth of their frequencies.

2023-06-07T21:30:00+01:00

«Le vaste trouble des solitudes a une gamme; crescendo redoutable: le grain, la rafale, la bourrasque, l'orage, la tourmente, la tempête, la trombe: les sept cordes de la lyre des vents, les sept notes de l'abîme.... Les vents courent, volent, s'abattent, finissent, recommencent, planent, sifflent, mugissent, rient; frénétiques, lascifs, effrénés, prenant leurs aises sur la vague irascible. Ces hurleurs ont une harmonie. Ils font tout le ciel sonore. Ils soufflent dans la nuée comme dans un cuivre, ils embouchent l'espace, et ils chantent dans l'infini, avec toutes les voix amalgamées des clairons, des buccins, des oliphants, des bugles et des trompettes, une sorte de fanfare prométhéenne. Qui les entend écoute Pan.»

Hugo (Lu pour la première fois sur la Punta Spadillo)

Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

2023-04-26T21:30:00+01:00

Georg Baselitz — Towel - Beach Picture 6, 1980:

'The problem is not the object in the picture, but the picture as an object.' Simple, raw compositions in oil and egg tempera. Fierce, brusque pictures made alongside first sculptures. Enormous, unwieldy plasticity — but gaiety, occasionally comedy.

Mania, 2019:

Hands are an important motif. The hand of rulers, the hand of God. Blessing or damning, acting in isolation from golden ground. Later, Dürer and Parmigianino depicted their own hands to reassure themselves of their artistry.

Surrealism Is Moving, 2019:

'I paint a picture and I counterproof it. The counterproof is simply the lighter rendition, like a reflection. Just the illusion of it all.'

The Ice Skating Woman, 2019:

The canvas as an arena. Baselitz confidently plays with the method but does not relinquish the object. We are not looking at an ice skater floating across the lake at all — our entire vision begins to float.

Between Nature and Art:

Flowers and Fruits

Botanical knowledge increased continually during the 15th and 16th centuries. Local flora was systematically investigated and new species reached Europe from distant lands. Detailed illustrations accompanied scientific publications on herbs and plants, which artisans could use for accurate replicas of flowers and fruits in silver, glass, stone or ivory.

Bill Frisell and Thomas Morgan — Vienna playlist: Misterioso. Mumbo Jumbo. It Should Have Happened a Long Time Ago. You Only Live Twice. Goldfinger.

Nocturnal Solutions

2023-03-22T21:30:00+01:00

PLUM4.

EXISTENCE
EXIT
EXTINCTION

Spring

2023-03-15T21:30:00+01:00

Japan

2023-02-28T21:30:00+01:00

Landing with Uma Elmo by Jakob Bro, Arve Henriksen & Jorge Rossy.

Nature, raw, blue-grey. Sculpted but not by the wind — from within. Precise, dense industrialisation, sense of design.

Dream: a tsunami fills the earth with water. Endless climbing of mountains to escape drowning. Abandoned mountain villages. We discover a possible life very high up. The mountains are green, flowered, temperate.

Other dream (above frozen Mongolia): Stopover in Venice. Visiting a building where I would have lived during my student years. The view over the river. The apartments are sublime and spacious. An ideal Venice. Enormous, multicoloured fish.

Siddhartha

2023-02-27T21:30:00+01:00

"Dreams and restless thoughts came flowing to him from the river, from the twinkling stars at night, from the sun's melting rays."

Michiyo Yagi Trio

2023-02-08T21:30:00+01:00

With Eivind Aarset & Jan Bang. Le Générateur, Gentilly.

Cold, feverish, walking out of Paris to suburban reaches. Streets quiet and comforting. Charles Lloyd's Sangam on the way. Concert extremely inspiring — mossy, full of life and shades.

▶ Michiyo Yagi Trio @ Le Générateur
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Die VI. Februarii

2023-02-06T21:30:00+01:00

Bachelard, L'Air et les songes:

"We always think of the imagination as the faculty that forms images. On the contrary, it deforms what we perceive; it is, above all, the faculty that frees us from immediate images and changes them."

Leviathan

2023-02-02T21:30:00+01:00

Braque: "Le vase donne une forme au vide et la musique au silence."

Lorsque les torrents étreignent la rumeur. Que les idées cessent. Les torrents rassurent. Leur bruit blanc ne se répétera jamais. Leur respiration nous enracine.

Je ne souhaite plus écouter de battements imposés, séquencés. Le monde déborde d'énergies mais on y perd notre sensibilité. Un vacarme si organisé qu'il en devient inaudible. Les lumières bleues nous aveuglent.

J'ai besoin d'écouter les éléments, un environnement vide d'idées. Watson. Fennesz. Lloyd. Il y a des orages dans la nature — ils apaisent par leur force. Leur force n'est pas destructrice, elle ne disperse pas.

Paris Nights

2023-01-29T21:30:00+01:00

radio.syg.ma

2023-01-13T21:30:00+01:00

▶ Paris
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Die IX. Novembris

2022-11-09T21:30:00+01:00

Stéphane Lambert sur Klee:

« Klee est littéralement fasciné par ce miracle qui fait sortir les vivants de leur inexistence. »

« Il y a en permanence chez Klee un pont subliminal entre irréalité et matérialité. »

« Chez Klee, cet alliage atteint un tel degré de concentration qu'il dégage des exhalaisons parfois vertigineuses. Le peintre avance sur le chemin de l'inconnaissable jusqu'à l'évanouissement de la raison. »

« Ce ne sont pas des couleurs qui habitent les œuvres de Paul Klee, mais le murmure des spectres que nous deviendrons. »

FTMA Festival

2022-10-14T21:30:00+01:00

Shcaa live along with Romeo Poirier & Jan Jelinek. 3537, Rue des Francs-Bourgeois.

Kew

2022-10-08T21:30:00+01:00

Landmarks
Robert Macfarlane
Hamish Hamilton, London, 2015

Diary of a Young Naturalist
Dara McAnulty
Little Toller Books, Dorset, 2020

Marianne North: A Very Intrepid Painter
Michelle Payne · foreword by Chris Mills
Kew Publishing, Richmond, 2011 · revised edition 2016

Kew Pocketbooks: Palms
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2020

Kew Pocketbooks: Fungi
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 2021

Barbican Hall, London

2022-10-07T21:30:00+01:00

Autechre. Zoviet France in support.

Cave music. Sound as geology — The hall becomes the instrument.

Stéphane Lambert

2022-09-22T21:30:00+01:00

« Peindre est un moyen, un lieu, une direction.

Le peintre expérimente son art tandis qu'il tente à travers lui de donner une forme au sentiment qui l'habite. Les œuvres se confondent aux effets que leurs artifices produisent. Les mosaïques calment la frayeur de la vue en ce point où ce qui se décompose rejoint ce qui s'assemble. L'ornement devient le sanctuaire qu'il décore. Dans la tanière des âmes, Klee bâtit des cathédrales où prier. La complicité de la matière et de l'esprit aboutit à un double mouvement : constructif-impressif.

Par l'abstraction figurative, l'histoire de l'art est revisitée par les deux bouts. Quand les pointillistes fragmentent la lumière en une multitude de particules, Klee passe de l'autre côté du miroir. Percée. »

Paul Motian

2022-07-22T21:30:00+01:00

"Playing the music is real, physically and whole. Then it's gone. But it's still there, in the air, in the mind, it exists. It's not part of technology, it's not recorded. It's part of the soul. It's there."

Soft Signs

2022-06-17T21:30:00+01:00

PLUM3.

Los Angeles

2022-05-01T21:30:00+01:00

▶ Pink Lime
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Numbers

2022-04-22T21:30:00+01:00

From abacus to vacuum tube to transistor — the same question compressed smaller each decade. Silicon at 10nm meets quantum tunnelling: electrons refuse barriers, flow continuously. The gate loses control.

Graphene waits. Carbon sensing terahertz radiation, changing properties with smell. Flexible, elastic. A material that listens.

Memory access time remains the bottleneck. 80 to 90% of machine learning is spent remembering. The rest is thought.

Rue de Seine

2022-01-01T21:30:00+01:00

Venise — Living with other beings

2021-07-13T21:30:00+01:00

"Our bodies are ecologies. They also belong to different ecosystems in which we are not alone. This room is dedicated to rethinking these ecologies more inclusively and symbiotically and to designing spaces in which these ecologies could thrive.

How does architecture recognize, represent, and help us live with other beings? How does it include the microbiomes of the body or the birds, bees, luffas, soils, and fungi as partners in building and inhabiting these ecosystems?"

Miromx

2021-05-27T21:30:00+01:00

▶ Miromx
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Thomas Mann — The Magic Mountain

2021-01-01T21:30:00+01:00

« Le monde de l'atome était extérieur et, de même, la planète Terre, que nous habitons, était selon toute probabilité un intérieur plein de profondeur, sur le plan organique. Un chercheur n'avait-il pas évoqué, dans son audace rêveuse, les « animaux de la Voie lactée », monstres cosmiques dont la chair, les os et le cerveau étaient composés de systèmes solaires? »

Les rideaux de pluie miroitante s'évanouirent : la mer s'étendait, c'était une mer du Sud, d'un bleu extrêmement profond, étincelant de lueurs argentées, avec une baie magnifique, dégagée et vaporeuse d'un côté, à demi sertie dans de vastes massifs montagneux dont le bleu allait en se délavant…

Die XXVI. Martii

2021-03-26T21:30:00+01:00

Lettre de Henri Matisse à Marguerite Duthuit

2020-12-07T21:30:00+01:00

«Un tableau fauve est un bloc lumineux formé par l'accord de plusieurs couleurs, formant un espace possible pour l'esprit (dans le genre, à mon sens, de celui d'un accord musical).

L'espace créé peut être vide comme une pièce d'appartement mais l'espace est tout de même créé. Suis-je clair? Je le crois.»

Sean Booth

2020-10-16T21:30:00+01:00

"The piano is beautiful but it's dumb, it separates the artist from the string."

No Moon At All, What A Night

2020-10-09T21:30:00+01:00

Apollo Records (AMB2006)

Faroh's Birds · Auguries · Moralia · Oons Ide · If You Fall · Sometime · Siskor · When Eternity · Until We Meet · Fantasia · Aurora

Richard Brody on Bird

2020-08-29T21:30:00+01:00

"In the abstract, bop is the harmonic and rhythmic complexification of jazz, based on the substitution of a new and more elaborate framework of chords for the ones originally anchoring pop songs.

Organizationally, it's the shift away from big bands (with their emphasis on compositions, arrangements, and unison playing) and toward individual soloists playing in small groups centered on extended improvisations. Aesthetically, it's musicians' self-aware transformation of jazz into an exemplary element of artistic modernism. And in tone, it's a virtual sonic documentary of the world as the musicians experienced it at the time of its flowering—a musical representation of anguish, irony, derision, and idealistic yearning."

"Parker's music had an effect akin to that of Welles's deep-focus complexities in 'Citizen Kane,' uniting the foreground and the background, rendering the complex musical framework conspicuous. Like Abstract Expressionism, it rendered the surfaces of music turbulent and cosmically intricate."

L'eau coule

2020-07-06T21:30:00+01:00

Natsume Sōseki:

"Sans savoir pourquoi j'aime ce monde où nous venons pour mourir"

Ozaki Hōsai:

"Partout des meurtres et pourtant l'eau coule dans la nuit"

Hazmx

2020-05-29T21:30:00+01:00

▶ Hazmx
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Earthbound

2020-05-26T21:30:00+01:00

9128.live — Astral Industries Takeover

2020-04-04T21:30:00+01:00

Premier confinement.

Fifty-hour stream. Chi Factory. Deepchord — Rod Modell's submerged dub. Waveform Transmission — esoteric sound collages.

The visualisations helped foster the tension between synthetic and organic. Advent of a new era.

Digging some EVE artworks to complete the vision...

Mapping territorial conquests

2020-02-15T21:30:00+01:00

Territorial struggles, both on land and at sea, have always been a significant "meeting point" of civilisations. Maps are a record of the changing borders resulting from territorial conquests, while military strategy, which exploits geographical knowledge, serves both a historical and an educational role in the biographical accounts of great leaders.

Soulages au Louvre

2020-02-09T21:30:00+01:00

Cascade

2020-01-10T21:30:00+01:00

▶ Cascade
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Hearts

2019-12-19T21:30:00+01:00

Perfection lies in the untamed visions of our mind.

PLUM1.

Thoreau, Walden

2019-12-18T21:30:00+01:00

"Those who have not learned to read the ancient classics in the language in which they were written must have a very imperfect knowledge of the history of the human race; for it is remarkable that no transcript of them has ever been made into any modern tongue, unless our civilization itself may be regarded as such a transcript. Homer has never yet been printed in English, nor Eschylus, nor Virgil even, - works as refined, as solidly done, and as beautiful almost as the morning itself; for later writers, say what we will of their genius, have rarely, if ever, equalled the elaborate beauty and finish and the lifelong and heroic literary labors of the ancients. They only talk of forgetting them who never knew them. It will be soon enough to forget them when we have the learning and the genius which will enable us to attend to and appreciate them. That age will be rich indeed when those relics which we call Classics, and the still older and more than classic but even less known Scriptures of the nations, shall have still further accumulated, when the Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas and Zendavestas and Bibles, with Homers and Dantes and Shakspeares, and all the centuries to come shall have successively deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last."

Terrence Malick — Days of Heaven

2019-12-07T21:30:00+01:00

Prince Igor

2019-11-25T21:30:00+01:00

L'air d'un passé que je peux presque toucher

Black Midi — La Boule Noire, Pigalle

2019-09-01T21:30:00+01:00

Immediacy of music. Kaleidoscopic qualities. Strong narration.

Nabokov, Pale Fire

2019-07-12T21:30:00+01:00

"I am looking at him. I am witnessing a unique physiological phenomenon: John Shade perceiving and transforming the world, taking it in and taking it apart, re-combining its elements in the very process of storing them up so as to produce at some unspecified date an organic miracle, a fusion of image and music, a line of verse. And I experienced the same thrill as when in my early boyhood I once watched across the tea table in my uncle's castle a conjurer who had just given a fantastic performance and was now quietly consuming a vanilla ice. I stared at his powdered cheeks, at the magical flower in his buttonhole where it had passed through a succession of different colors and had now become fixed as a white carnation, and especially at his marvelous fluid-looking fingers which could if he chose make his spoon dissolve into a sunbeam by twiddling it, or turn his plate into a dove by tossing it up in the air."

Contemporary Audio Solutions

2019-03-27T21:30:00+01:00

▶ Contemporary Audio Solutions
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Fanar

2019-02-14T21:30:00+01:00

▶ oiseaux fanar
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Scout Niblett at Petits Bains

2018-11-22T21:30:00+01:00

Transcended. Years before, a small note to myself compared her voice to Miles' trumpet on Bitches Brew. Both look like burning canyons.

▶ Scout Niblett @ Petits Bains
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Faroh's Birds

2018-08-16T21:30:00+01:00

It's like a storm inside
A weight to their songs
Obstructing the light
When the 23rd passes
The seventh, check five, four
Lost in the sublime, the subliminal

They praise the cage, delay its pulse, prey on affection,
Leaving me cold, vague, with sympathy for their melody.

Techno-pessimism

2018-07-25T21:30:00+01:00

The Luminaries

2018-07-14T21:30:00+01:00

"She was dressed in her gown of striped charcoal, and over it, a smart black riding jacket with puffed leg-o'-mutton sleeves. Her copper hair, wonderfully bright, was piled high upon her head, the chignon held in place with a black band of velvet. As she swept by the barristers' bench, Moody caught the scent of camphor, lemons, and aniseed-an emphatic scent..."

Union Chapel

2018-04-17T21:30:00+01:00

Jan Jelinek and Midori Takada.

Singapura

2018-03-11T21:30:00+01:00

▶ Singapura
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Summer Gone

2018-02-19T21:30:00+01:00

▶ Summer Gone
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Die XV. Februarii

2018-02-15T21:30:00+01:00

Des mouettes peu de temps après m’être réveillé. Un passage s’est ouvert quelque part — même si les heures tombent au même endroit, un ruisseau coule à mes côtés. Une correspondance avec le passé. Celui que j’aimais. Les caresses que mon nom tente d’oublier.

South East Asia

2018-02-01T21:30:00+01:00

Opposition of high modernity and minimalism with luxuriant tropical atmosphere. Strong impact.

Soundtrack: Basinski — Cascade. Low — Lullaby.

Village Vanguard

2017-10-10T21:30:00+01:00

Bill Frisell & The Bad Plus.
"Unsung Heroes. Into the Animal Race. Let Me In. Rag. Live to Tell."

Watching Bill play, a feeling of familiarity, as a memory from a very distant future. We will meet one day.

New York

2017-10-01T21:30:00+01:00

After the album's release. Finalisation of Hearts. Many inspiring acts, nighttime walks.

Bill Frisell. Zorn. Tyshawn Sorey. Marc Ribot. On Ka'a Davis at the Stone (lofi sceneries + bluesy guitar). Alan Vega retrospect. Matana Roberts improvising in MOMA. Cécile McLorin Salvant.

Encountered Ryuichi Sakamoto in the street.

Placidum — concept laid down. Different versions of the logo slowly emerge through archive research.

Also finalized a second track for my R&S 12".

Pacific Street

2017-09-25T21:30:00+01:00

"Les derniers jours m'ont submergé d'un sentiment de plénitude, effaçant le vide, repoussant l'obscurité

Plusieurs fois j'ai tenté d'écrire car mon cœur débordait, mais je restais, immobile, sur le canapé délavé, orangé, du petit salon. Cette pièce en contrebas est abritée de toutes parts par un beau jardin rempli d'oiseaux."

Dakota Dreams

2017-09-07T21:30:00+01:00

Weird retake.

▶ Dakota Dreams
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Weird retake

Golconde

2017-09-01T21:30:00+01:00

First album. Vinyl only release on Sharingtones.

As they were longing for these stones with their whole soul, incandescent gazes illuminated Southern Indian nights. Whispers would silence the nocturnal fury. Conspiracy fills the warm air. What appeared to his sight were countless blazing birds, slowly, carrying out their watch, through thick layers of rainforest. Their systems, their ambitions, their wild illusions, so many spheres of romance.

For an instant, the great luminaries took shelter within the most obscure earth, only to arise again, as a reflection, in the eyes of a Queen.

(remastered for digital in 2019 - PLUM2.)

Live @ Intrinsic

2017-08-01T21:30:00+01:00

Dordogne. Improvisational collage: synthetic materials, field recordings, found audio. Improvised guitar along DSP. Solid body Gibson 335 and a small fx rack.

Opening for E/tape and Nicolas Lutz. Among others: Jan Jelinek & Masayoshi Fujita, Miss I, Chi Factory, Vlada, Roedelius & Chaplin, Gwenan, Adrew James Gustav, Oswaldo...

Lunar Observation

2017-07-11T21:30:00+01:00

Cotton moon, in the naked angle, still remembers it was full. Behind, so far, a star, so strong — thought it was a plane. Then above my lingering place, a screen, white glow on the lava, twice every half a minute.

Silver over marine blue. Pleased to contrast the astral lights, pleased to wear the abyss. Clusters of obscure mines.

Wind stopped. Time resets backward, recites common wonders. Perfect circle ruling the sea grooves.

Bird Of Prey

2017-06-01T21:30:00+01:00

▶ Bird Of Prey
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Die XV. Maji

2017-05-15T21:30:00+01:00

Victor Hugo:

"Le Poète engage dans les profondeurs de l'inconnu le souvenir des amis intimes, des morts, des absents, des empires disparus.

La double mer du Temps et de l'Espace.

Comme la musique, art du nombre qui révèle la loi de l'Ordre Cosmique. Liaison de la langue humaine à celle de Dieu.

Révéler la mesure entre la grande âme obscure de la nature et la simplicité de l'enfance. Faculté d'absorption de la vie extérieure. Sens subtils révélant les abîmes : les poètes voient le mystère partout. ← Exprimer les ténèbres captivantes, l'énigmatique physionomie du mystère. C'est Dieu qui remplit tout."

Die VIII. Maji

2017-05-08T21:30:00+01:00

Le bleu de l'âme pour préserver la grâce des nuits.
Fontaines de sables et océans éteins.
Une rosée qui se compose, vert sur noir, les chants comme les nuits, les plumes d'une certitude infinie.

Die XXVI. Aprilis

2017-04-26T21:30:00+01:00

Cicéron: «Si vous possédez une bibliothèque et un jardin, vous avez tout ce qu'il vous faut.»

Die XXVII. Februarii

2017-02-27T21:30:00+01:00

Les mots se plissent, doucement, puis se voilent tant ces pensées sont réelles, trop grandes pour une âme sans courage. Elle arracha l'horloge du mur et brisa le verre. J'aimais les yeux fatigués, car ils ne récitent plus. C'est ça le jazz. La cadence des vents. Les cycles millénaires. La minute de trop.

Die XVII. Februarii

2017-02-17T21:30:00+01:00

Baudelaire, Les Paradis artificiels — III. Le Théâtre de Séraphin:

"Votre œil se fixe sur un arbre harmonieux courbé par le vent ; dans quelques secondes, ce qui serait dans le cerveau d'un poète qu'une comparaison fort naturelle deviendra dans le vôtre une réalité."

"Au-dessus de ma tête voltigeaient des oiseaux brillants et tourbillonnants, et, comme mon œil percevait le son des cloches au cou des chevaux qui cheminaient au loin sur la grande route, les deux sens fondant leur impression en une idée unique ; j'attribue aux oiseaux ce chant mystérieux de cuivre, et je croyais qu'ils chantaient avec un gosier de métal."

Die II. Februarii

2017-02-02T21:30:00+01:00

La brume ne songe qu'à nos rires. Elle sait voir nos leurres au déplaisir. Laisse s'étendre dans les passages étroits la lueur de cœurs inventés. Personne ici n'a de cœur. Nous sommes une foule qui ressent sans choisir.

The Day the Wall Fell

2017-01-25T21:30:00+01:00

▶ The Day the Wall Fell
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Die XV. Januarii

2017-01-15T21:30:00+01:00

Le froid bleu de l'air qui nous retient. L'envie que chacun a d'observer en l'autre une réponse. Car les brûlures se font plus nettes encore que le temps. Quelle est la marque de l'attachement? Lorsque une lumière vacille et qu'il se fait tard.

Coruscent

2017-01-06T21:30:00+01:00

Toutes les teintes oscillent entre écrues, boisées, dorées et noires, aidées par la nuit urbaine. Le feu des lumières en contrebas de la tour.

The Desert Guitar

2016-12-26T21:30:00+01:00

I bought a guitar and named it Aino — I was reading Sándor Márai at the time. It's a heavy instrument, entirely made of solid maple. That night, before taking the plane, I held it, surrounded by the city lights underneath, feeling the beige, sand-colored carpet of the hotel. It clashes completely with the hyper-modernity of the city, and feels perfect. That feeling would become the embodiment of a series: Hearts, Interior Rooms, Latitudes.

PLUM1. PLUM5. PLUM8.

Die XXIII. Novembris

2016-11-23T21:30:00+01:00

"Ce jour d'août la main pesait sur moi, la sève de ma vie s'était asséchée comme dans la chaleur sèche de l'été."

Baudelaire, Les Paradis artificiels — Le goût de l'infini:

"Il est des jours où l'homme s'éveille avec un génie jeune et vigoureux ; ses paupières à peine déchargées du sommeil qui les scellait, le monde s'offre à lui avec un relief puissant, une netteté de contours, une richesse de couleurs admirables ; le monde moral ouvre ses vastes perspectives pleines de clartés nouvelles."

Die VIII. Octobris

2016-10-08T21:30:00+01:00

Baudelaire, Les Paradis artificiels — Le poème du Hachisch, I. Le goût de l'infini:

"Ceux qui savent s'observer eux-mêmes et qui gardent la mémoire de leurs impressions, ceux-là qui ont su, comme Hoffmann, construire leur baromètre spirituel, ont eu parfois à noter, dans l'observatoire de leur pensée, de belles saisons, d'heureuses journées, de délicieuses minutes."

Live at Water View Room, Intrinsic

2016-09-18T21:30:00+01:00

Dj set opening for Hans Joachim Roedelius & Christopher Chaplin, visuals by dreamrec.

▶ live at water view room
Download →

MixTate Shcaa on Paul Klee

2016-09-09T21:30:00+01:00

I knew I wanted to work on a mix for a Paul Klee painting even before I had an idea of what I might find in the Tate collection. I have been captivated by his work for some time, and I think it is because I enjoy his balance, his delicacy in whispering to the subconscious. Klee elevated his art by intellectualising every facet of it – he knew what aspects needed to be considered and executed in a precise manner; at the same time, he also preserved other spaces for spontaneity where he could let the imperfections of organic life express themselves.

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/klee-a-young-ladys-adventure-n05659/mixtate-shcaa-paul-klee

▶ Shcaa - MixTate A Young Lady's Adventure
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Full mix

▶ Shcaa - Suspicion of Weakness
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Tate exclusive track

Die XVII. Augusti

2016-08-17T21:30:00+01:00

Baudelaire, dédicace à J.G.F. des Paradis artificiels:

"Toutefois il est évident que comme le 'monde matériel' n'existe que dans le spirituel, hors des patries, et concourt ainsi à opérer cet amalgame indéterminable que nous nommons notre individualité, la femme est l'être qui projette la plus grande ombre ou la plus grande lumière dans nos rêves."

"La femme est fatalement suggestive ; elle vit d'une autre vie que la sienne propre ; elle vit spirituellement dans les imaginations qu'elle hante et qu'elle féconde."

Sicilia

2016-08-12T21:30:00+01:00

Many nights sleeping outside. Loren Connors on repeat. Epiphanies — the sparse guitar, uncertain tempo, hugely melancholic intertwined melodies against Mediterranean backdrop.

Second sonic collage is finalized, « A Silent Spectator »

2016-08-09T21:30:00+01:00

(see chronicles)

Recording Golconde

2016-07-08T21:30:00+01:00

Staying by myself in the south of France in my grandparents’ home, don’t remember why they are not here in the middle of summer. The air is saturated with pine needles and at night I take small walks under yellowish artificial lights of the « lotissement » tricking myself into believing this was quiet America.

Mémoires: "Doors opened very early, onto universes I could not understand but whose grandeur I felt."

Dreams I channel in this music: Arlequin. Woody and exotic mysteries of the jungle (overlooking the east side of the old lab). The reptile aquariums (shortly after leaving Paris as a young child)

PLUM2.

Swell Music II

2016-05-27T21:30:00+01:00

▶ Swell Music II
Download →

Paul Klee Retrospective

2016-05-01T21:30:00+01:00

Pompidou. Enormous opening. Mystery, miniature, dream logic.

Stéphane Lambert on Klee:

« L'artiste-architecte attend le moment où la théorie ne répond plus pour échafauder la structure du rêve. C'est par exemple un Départ des bateaux (1927) sur une mer nocturne. Le moindre suffit pour planter le décor. Battre la mesure dans l'obscurité. Les couleurs vives flottent dans la nuit, qui pourraient être autant d'allusions allégoriques que de simples voiliers cherchant à s'orienter. Cette position intermédiaire charge l'œuvre d'une épaisseur inédite comme si elle s'était inscrite sur un palimpseste maintes fois effacé. Les époques se fondent en un courant identique. Deux petits cercles surplombent un fin rectangle : et un visage apparaît. Quelques triangles sur des croissants de lune : et nous voilà embarqués pour l'odyssée. Dans le sommeil de l'existence, des ombres œuvrent à notre navigation. Notre image se dilue dans les eaux sombres sur lesquelles nous voguons.»

Untitled _/2

2016-02-10T21:30:00+01:00

▶ Untitled _/2
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Unwanted Studio Fragment

2016-01-10T21:30:00+01:00

Controfase.

▶ Unwanted Studio Fragment
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Terry & Gian Riley

2015-10-10T21:30:00+01:00

Sublime, first contact with Pandit Pran Nath echoes, Terry’s voice is haunting, the energy between father and son is deeply touching — a nightly and marine world they channel, something like Treno (FF IX)

La Scala

2015-01-05T21:30:00+01:00

Schubert, Liszt and Schumann programme, culminating in the Dichterliebe.
Tenor: Ian Bostridge
Pianoforte: Thomas Adès

Roma

2015-01-03T21:30:00+01:00

Un café très tôt en face du Vatican, des odeurs méditerranéennes malgré tout, un soleil froid et brillant, des escaliers en labyrinthe entourés de lauriers.

Sailing

2014-06-14T21:30:00+01:00

▶ Sailing
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Lover, Dancer

2014-06-02T21:30:00+01:00

For Sharingtones.

▶ Lover, Dancer
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For Sharingtones

Spot Bleu #6

2013-08-03T21:30:00+01:00

This set opened the doors, cross-contaminated curations since absorbed into my language. I could not see the small crowd because of the lights.

▶ Spot Bleu
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Chêne

2013-07-01T21:30:00+01:00

For Pluie Noir.

▶ Placid Strait — Chêne
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For Pluie Noir

Iz Pepla

2013-04-15T21:30:00+01:00

For Pluie Noir.

▶ Iz Pepla
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For Pluie Noir

Moscow

2013-03-21T21:30:00+01:00

Winter persists here. We find shelter from a snowy storm in a church — time stands still (faded burgundy, russet and gold). We hear chanting. A businessman, his case set nearby. A young woman in fur.
Not long after that trip, a track called A Dombon materializes. Tropical assumptions, vocoded French, a Dostoevskian shadow. Reading Tender Is the Night. A sentence yields "Placid Strait." For now, a vague alias. Nothing more.

Praeludium

2013-02-18T21:30:00+01:00

Fourth winter in London. End of a cycle, apparent now. A high fever and things refuse alignment. Without knowing it, I’m back where it began. I dream of chamber music — texture and hidden melodies in conversation. Time seems released. Several trains ascending Swiss mountains, War & Peace open on my lap. Let’s see behind the peak.

Die XVI. Decembris

2012-12-16T21:30:00+01:00

South of France. Wet soil, dead leaves, firewood smoke. Preface emerges — not pretentious, a collection of missing links. (See Chronicles.)

Die I. Decembris

2012-12-01T21:30:00+01:00

« Il avait appris à voir la grandeur, l'éternité, l'infini en tout. Aussi était-il naturel que pour le voir, pour jouir de sa contemplation, il eût jeté sa longue-vue avec laquelle il avait regardé jusqu'alors par-dessus la tête des hommes, et qu'il contemplât joyeusement autour de lui la vie perpétuellement changeante, toujours grande, incompréhensible et infinie. »

Dreams of foxes, of wolves escaping in the snow.