CD + booklet – Acte

This composition by Gabriel Ledoux is accompanied by a 60-page booklet that features pop artwork by Gabriel Jasmin and texts by six different authors. The music immediately pushes towards a particular climax, associating traditional structures of chamber music with free form sequences, ambient and synthetic environments, narrations from many sources and vocal parts – creating a contemporary overlapping of genres, connecting multiple disciplines, some of which are extra-musical. The composer uses archival recordings of some of the victims of (sordid) events in the modern history of the United States, such as the collective suicide at the People’s Temple in Jonestown in 1978, the siege of Waco in 1993 and the massacre in Columbine in 1999. These references – that echo the expressive power of a mutoid ensemble – defied every morbid and journalistic collective fascination, the immanence of the most aulic structures and the dramatically more current elements. Some may argue that this subject matter is somehow too easy but there is a long and inexhaustible tradition in art and music of “staging” the currish, the despicable, the miserable and the mad in society. Gabriel Ledoux has no difficulty in articulating the different narratives that colour the project with a protest/activist aura, concretely activating strong emotional references and beautifully experimental musicality. The release sees the light for Acte, independent label founded by Simon Chioini and the same Gabriel Ledoux.

 

Gabriel Ledoux – Le vide parfait