presque rien

CD – Rhizome.s  03 , France 2013

L'eau (qu'ill contient) ne change presque rien au verre, et le verre (où elle est) ne change rien à l'eau.
The water (what it contains) does almost nothing to the glass, and the glass (where it is) does not alter the water.

Francis Ponge, Le verre d'eau, 1948

1. Presque Rien - 79'39''

Ana Foutel, Barry Chabala, Brian Labycz, Bruno Duplant, Bryan Eubanks, D'Incise, Dafne Vicente Sandoval, Daniel Jones, Darius Ciuta, Delphine Dora, Dimitra Lazaridou Chatzigoga, Dominic Lash, Ernesto Rodrigues, Eva-Maria Houben, Fergus Kelly, Ferran Fages, Gil Sansón, Grisha Shakhnes, Iliya Belorukov, Jamie Drouin, Jez Riley French, Johnny Chang, Jonas Kocher (with Dafne Stefanou), Joseph Clayton Mills, Julien Héraud, Jürg Frey, Keith Rowe, Lance Austin Olsen, Lee Noyes, Lucio Capece, Massimo Magee, Michael Pisaro, Paco Rossique, Paulo Chagas, Pedro Chambel, Philippe Lenglet, Rachael Wadham, Ryoko Akama (with John Bryan), Simon Reynall, Stefan Thut, Travis Johnson and Vanessa Rossetto

Cover design Ryoko Akama

Reviews

Right from the start their are a couple of problematic issues with this work and more surface as one listens. First, of course, is the title of the release, Duplant knows very well that it was used for a series of pieces by Luc Ferrari and an album on INA-GRM. Duplant's source, however, is a line from Francis Ponge: "L'eau (qu'il contient) ne change presque rien au verre, et le verre (où elle est) ne change rien à l'eau.", translated thusly by Michael Pisaro for this recording: "The water (what it contains) does almost nothing to the glass, and the glass (where it is) does not alter the water." He simply liked the phrase in that context (a context which was to be the instructional score for the work) and went with it. It's an interesting notion, to intentionally disregard any proprietorship of a phrase or title; I kind of admire the effrontery, as if someone titled a new recording, "Bitches Brew" or a new novel, "Gravity's Rainbow"--problematic in the extreme but at least a little provocative.

Secondly, Duplant takes the quotation and asks a large number of musicians to actualize it (limiting themselves to two minutes), concentrating on the phrase, "presque rien", an action not really a whit different from the approach taken fairly routinely by Manfred Werder, right down to using Ponge as a source. What is one to make of this? It's something I've had tangential thoughts on for quite a while--a musician establishes a certain attack, carves a niche and it somehow becomes his or her own, territory where it's not considered polite to trespass, at least overtly so. But if (I would think to myself) an approach is particularly beautiful or rewarding, why not? One can acknowledge that a door has been opened by someone else by why not use it as well? Except that such a high premium is placed on originality that this becomes taboo, the more so the closer one inches toward it. Can you perform your own variation on 4'33"? Maybe there's a distinction to be drawn between (in music) doing it and releasing a recording of it. But why? Duplant seems to be edging toward a Mattin-like questioning of norms held sacred in this field and, even if the results are uneven, I can't help but think this is by and large a good thing.

Ah, the results. Forty-four musicians are represented herein, sequenced alphabetically by first name. I suppose I should list them, especially since a "list" is more or less what Duplant was after. Ana Foutel, Barry Chabala, Brian Labycz, Bruno Duplant, Bryan Eubanks, D'Incise, Dafne Vicente Sandoval, Daniel Jones, Darius Ciuta, Delphine Dora, Dimitra Lazaridou Chatzigoga, Dominic Lash, Ernesto Rodrigues, Eva-Maria Houben, Fergus Kelly, Ferran Fages, Gil Sansón, Grisha Shakhnes, Iliya Belorukov, Jamie Drouin, Jez Riley French, Johnny Chang, Jonas Kocher (with Dafne Stefanou), Joseph Clayton Mills, Julien Héraud, Jürg Frey, Keith Rowe, Lance Austin Olsen, Lee Noyes, Lucio Capece, Massimo Magee, Michael Pisaro, Paco Rossique, Paulo Chagas, Pedro Chambel, Philippe Lenglet, Rachael Wadham, Ryoko Akama (with John Bryan), Simon Reynall, Stefan Thut, Travis Johnson and Vanessa Rossetto. It's very difficult listening in the sense of trying to assign any kind of structure or cohesiveness to the undertaking. The actualizations appear one immediately following the other, generally pretty quiet (not surprising, given the nature of the image in the line referred to) but, in memory, tending to blur into one another. It becomes a fools errand to say, "liked that one, don't like this so much", etc. but there's also no sense of each contribution fitting into soe greater whole. It's simply a list. I found it frustrating in a manner similar to my experiences with much of Tom Johnson's music, particularly something like "The Chord Catalog". As there, it becomes clear that one has to listen differently, though it's no easy task for these ears to manage that. I would have preferred that the pieces were isolated from one another, with perhaps a minute or more of silence between. But then, you'd be confronted with more art object than list and the latter is Duplant's objective, so you're forced to just deal with it or not. 

The problem is that doing so and given the brevity of the pieces, you almost have to sit and follow the contributor listing with some intentness as you go. "OK, here's Eubanks, this one's Frey, now Thut", etc., mentally checking them off as you go. It's not how I enjoy listening, though, preferring to hear the thing "as a whole", except there is no whole, hence the frustration. I find myself, after each track, getting up and pausing the player, an awkward maneuver to say the least, though I can picture Mattin grinning at such activity. Loaded into iTunes and experienced at random via shuffle, I've no doubt they'll be welcome nuggets, even if that means abjuring their listlike qualities. Tant pis! :-) Brian Olewnick (Just Outside)

What is your favorite album ever? What a simple, but vast and complex subject/question!
So much music, so many sounds (through my window, my every day life, my dreams), composers, musicians could provide the answer to this question. So much… In fact, almost anything, almost nothing too.
Almost nothing, Presque rien as in the three pieces from Luc Ferrari. These Presque rien, just as John Cage’s 4’33 (another contender for the title of ‘favorite album ever’) have, in quite radical ways, though different, revolutionised the music of the twentieth century and beyond; questioning practices, habits, convictions, without ever trying to shock.
Presque rien, almost nothing, what a statement of humility! And what poetry in the titles! Presque rien n°1, le lever du jour au bord de la mer, Almost nothing 1, sunrise at the sea, Presque rien n°2, ainsi continue la nuit dans ma tête multiple, Almost nothing # 2, and continues the night in my head multiple and Presque rien avec filles, Almost nothing with girls.
But what about the music itself, this ‘music without music’? What is there in Presque rien n°1? Almost nothing. Some animals, the sea, a harbour with its fishing boats, its inhabitants, the cicadas, lots of cicadas. No composition, it seems, but this is perhaps not true. Is this music? Is this non-music? No, it is neither one nor the other, it is far beyond. It is the creation / recreation of a real life, ideal and utopic, as we may also find in Jean Giono’s Provence.
This way of recording, this questioning of reality, we find it in some major contemporary composers as Manfred Werder, Michael Pisaro, Jez Riley French, in their own way.
Presque rien n°2, or how to try to penetrate substantially a nocturnal landscape. Ferrari walks (virtually?), recording on magnetic tape the elements and sounds that surround him (like birds, cars), commenting (whispering) in real time (but it’s not true) what he does and sees. This meta-language, this mise en abîme, should seem/be truly hermetic, boring, but yet, just the opposite occurs. Here, all is sensuality, subtlety (as always with Ferrari), poetry, intelligence.
This poetry, this sensuality, transpires in the piece Presque rien avec filles, where the forest becomes a place of fantasy through the various and discrete feminine multilingual confessions.
In all these parts, the spirit of Francis Ponge is not far. This meticulous (because, with non-composed pieces, lies a true sense of organisation of chance) and poetic reconstruction/reformulation of reality.
There is not a day, a moment, when/where these Presque rien do not resonate in me, either as a simple listener, a musician, or a composer. Like John Cage’s 4’33 has literally revolutionised the concept, representation and perception of silence, Presque rien by Luc Ferrari has opened and still opens our hearts, minds and imaginations to the world we are surrounded by. Richard Pinnel (The Watchful Ear)