adventurous music from secret pockets of the globe
Another multi-layered journey from Montréal’s Vincent Bergeron, “Il y a seulement des apparitions” continues his exploration of cutup mixing techniques and his own idiosyncratic singing. The result is a rich “spasmacousmatic” experience, a surreal engagement with Bergeron’s musical collaborators and the themes he grapples with.
Download ($7) is available at the Spectropol Bandcamp site.
We thought it would be interesting to get some perspectives from a few of VB’s collaborators on his new album (out 8/7/13 on Spectropol). Vincent came up with three entertaining questions; read them and the responses below.
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Entrevue – avant écoute
An interview with the collaborators before the release of my project Il y a seulement des apparitions (Spectropol Records).
# 1: What are your musical expectations of a story-poem linked to the music of Vincent Bergeron?
# 2: Why does Vincent keep working on his music that scares everybody?
# 3: In what way do you think a reality show about the daily life of Vincent is or isn’t a good idea to better understand his music?
Frédéric Szymanski (guitares acoustiques) sur Apparitions
Je n’ai pas d’attentes particulières, à part peut-être, une de fois de plus, d’être surpris par l’alchimie des sons et instruments…
Je pense que Vincent compose une musique qui est fidèle à son âme, je pense que c’est le plus important pour un musicien, plutôt que d’essayer de plaire à tout prix et de composer une musique insipide à ses yeux.
Pour atteindre un plus large public, la musique non-mainstream doit comporter des explications, car le public est de moins en moins habitué à imaginer ou réfléchir…
Je pense qu’un reality-show ou un documentaire peut mieux aider le public à comprendre la vision du compositeur et donc à mieux adhérer à sa musique.
George Christian (guitare électrique) sur Apparitions
#1: My expectations are, basically, from someone who deals with poetry and literature in general, and, most of it, the music out of the literature references. I can read a bit of French due to my knowledge of the neo-Latin language, and I can state that Vincent’s poetic vision deals with a territory which I feel familiar to me, which I would classify as Post-Modern, but brings resonances mainly with the Post-Romantic poetic tendencies. And it fits to the morbid, surreal carnival of timbres he brings in his compositions. I admire quite much how intricate his work is, and also his sense of coherence by bringing sounds of radically different sources. And his rhythm is quite tricky, with irregular meters met altogether in its polyphony. It’s also very cinematic, I guess his experience as a movie editor showed him how to bring polyphony of radically different sounds a sense of narrativity out of a music composition.
#2: I don’t know exactly why – this is something quite personal and I guess he could respond to this question a lot better than me. But I believe that the reasons why are already answered by listening to his music: quite unique. Something that defines his existence into the musical world. His talent in managing a diverse amount of timbres also respects their integral existence. Which leads us to the next question…
#3: His Spasmacousmatic is ALREADY reality show! Not in the usual sense of this term, but a carnival of reality, of timbral speeches into a musical piece. I don’t think a meticulous composer like Vincent really deserves a melodrama to appeal to the audiences. Probably a decent and respectful documentary immersed into his creative process.
Jörg Fischer (percussions de Spring Spleen, 2012) sur Notre Ambiguïté Moléculaire et Risque de…
# 1: I don’t have expectations about that, but I have faith that Vincent will make air molecules vibrate in a beautiful way.
# 2: There’s two things that irritate me about this question:
…….1. Why ask me? Only Vincent knows.
…….2. His music doesn’t scare everybody.
# 3:I never liked the notion of “understanding” music and suggest to start with individual reality shows about everybody else’s daily life, and at the end of the day, everybody gets to watch his or her own life on the telly.
Benjamin Smith (orgue électrique) sur Beau Coup de Son sans instinct de survie
1. I think Vincent will integrate his vision and style into the story-poem with an excellent soundscape to highlight its meaning. 2. Vincent must just make music. If it scares some people, so be it. If it delights others, so be it. It almost does not matter. A creative person must create, it’s something necessary for them to do. 3. If a reality show captures who Vincent truly is and it gives insight into everything around that and what he does and goes about it, it is a good idea. If it somehow does not show that or is edited out for entertainment without substance, it’s not a good idea. It is all in how it is done.
Jurica Jelic (basse fretless) sur Apparitions
1: It’s gonna be unique, cool and great like rest of Vincent’s work!
2: ‘Cause he is a musical pervert.
3: He is too smart to be on a reality show! Maybe if he got breast implants live on TV, people might get interested…
Collaborateurs / Collaborators :
Benjamin Smith (orgue électrique) sur Beau Coup de Son sans instinct de survie
Jörg Fischer (percussions de Spring Spleen, 2012) sur Notre Ambiguïté Moléculaire et Risque de…
Elyze Venne-Deshaies (clarinette basse) sur Risque de se démantibuler
Karli (voix) sur Notre Ambiguïté Moléculaire
Frédéric Szymanski (guitares acoustiques) sur Apparitions
George Christian (guitare électrique) sur Apparitions
Jurica Jelic (basse fretless) sur Apparitions
Vincent Bergeron – 2013
spectropol records 