strata & spheres documents the first collaboration of French experimental electroacoustic composer-improviser-sound artist Gwennaëlle Roulleau and German hyper-pianist-improviser Reinhold Friedl, the artistic director of the contemporary ensemble zeitkratzer. The title captures faithfully the spirit of this sonic journey that explores physical and energetic transitions of matter and energy, constant changes of state, generating sensual transformations in terms of strata and spheres as well as spheres, the unlimited, cosmic, intermingling, overwhelming, immersive.
The four soundscapes suggest a two-headed, imaginary sonic beast that blends thoughtfully Friedl’s pianistic mathematics, including playing inside and with the piano strings, with Roulleau’s precise electronic interferences, including sampled and processed sounds. These layered and nuanced soundscapes create new, almost tangible sonic beings, carefully build stimulating and often unsettling tension and open up alien harmonic fields.
strata & spheres gravitates from «Tectonique» and «Papillon», the opening, dissonant, epileptic and chaotic collisions of Friedl’s acoustic piano sounds and Roulleau’s electronic treatments that radiate, dark and gloomy atmospheres to the latter «Entre les vides» and «Frottements» that suggest subtle, more intimate and even elegant and poetic conversations that evokes a mysterious musical logic. But, eventually, all soundscapes offer inspired, distinct and immersive forms of play of spatial shapes: strata & spheres.
Eyal Hareuveni
Gwennaëlle Roulleau (electronics – Soma Lyra 8, Arturia Mini brute 2, Duofluctus, amplified objects, electrodynamic microphone, micro piezzo, Usine HH 5.2), Reinhold Friedl (piano)
