La Nuée (the flock in French) is a Belgian, Brussels-based saxophone quintet founded in 2017 and led by alto sax player-composer Johannes Eimermacher. La Nuée is inspired by flocks of birds, sometimes mixed birds, the way the individual and independent birds interact with each other, guide and follow each other, imitating their manoeuvres to form one single organism which allows the flock a kind of telepathic communication..
The quintet attempts to form an organism that can move as an entity, breathe, change its form, its density, its maneuvers, its direction, its speed. A body that is more complex than the sum of all its elements. La Nuée is esthetically inspired by contemporary composers like Helmut Lachenmann, Sofia Gubaidulina, Jürg Frey but claims that its unique instrumentation – three alto sax players – Eimermacher, Audrey Lauro and Frans Van Isacker, tenor sax player Sylvain Debaisieux and baritone sax player Hanne De Backer, augmented by drummer Portuguese drummer João Lobo – and its diverse possibilities of sound production is the main inspiration.
II, obviously, is the sophomore album of La Nuée, following the self-titled debut album (Umland, 2020), and was recorded in 2022. The two extended pieces – «Le Souffle» (the breath) and «La Nuée» were composed by Eimermacher and aim to bring the musicians to blend into one single, complex body or instrument. This entity can divide itself into subgroups, in individuals and reunite.
«Le Souffle» is a minimalist yet methodical exploration of a wide variety of extended breathing techniques that produce different kinds of air sounds by the saxophones. The saxophones become an abstract sonic generators that produces soft and otherworldly waves of breathing noises, at the beginning almost in a static mode but later on, it slowly gravitates into a tangible and unsettling storm. «La Nuée», with drummer Lobo, is based on a graphic score that shows Eimermacher’s imaginary bird flights that suggest directions and form, but leaving freedom for the choice of the sound materials, and unpredicted internal interactions between the musicians. Now La Nuée sounds like a hyperactive, chatty flock of sonic explorers-painters that takes its time before settling on a loose course and dynamics. When Lobo joins he adds a free and sparse pulse to the commotion and triggers percussive sounds from La Nuée, allowing this piece to offer captivating, joyful noises, before it shifts again to a minimalist and quiet drone.
Eyal Hareuveni
Johannes Eimermacher (alto saxophone), Audrey Lauro (alto saxophone), Frans Van Isacker (alto saxophones), Sylvain Debaisieux (tenor saxophone), Hanne De Backer (baritone saxophone), João Lobo (drums)
