French trombonist Christiane Bopp has played with fellow French double bass master Joëlle Léandre, pianist Sophia Domancich, and violinist Dominique Pifarély, among many others. She dedicates her second solo album, Rêver, murmurer, dire (To dream, to whisper, to say), following Noyau De Lune (fou, 2018), to these musicians, as well as to her family members, «and to Her, too».
The fifteen short, intimate pieces were recorded at Studio des Résistants in Poitiers in October 2025 and highlight Bopp’sidiosyncratic, poetic aesthetics. She expands the trombone sonic palette with her expressive voice – literally, extended breathing techniques, mutes, and occasionally a bass drum and objects. She offers a rich, often volatile and tactile language of eccentric vocalisations, sensual whispers, fractured tones, and sudden eruptions.
Rêver, murmurer, dire captures Bopp’s «optimistic obsessions» with the trombone, as one of the pieces is titled, and portrays her as an adventurous, fearless, and inventive improviser, a mad sonic scientist, lyrical poet, and sonic shaman, who keeps challenging herself and her instrument into uncharted territories. She offers a highly personal language that resists any convention or form, and seamlessly navigates through jazz, free improvisation, and experimental territories.
Bopp feels at home immediately in each new, challenging sonic terrain with her profound musical sensibility. Bopp transforms the trombone into an infinite, abstract sonic generator that can sing timeless songs, perform mysterious rituals, trigger evocative dreams, and flirt with otherworldly sounds. The last piece is a touching love letter song to the mysterious Her, «Around her – She knows it».
Eyal Hareuveni
Christiane Bopp (trombone, voice, bass drum, objects)
