nuits (nights) is the French-Belgian experimental, sound-oriented quartet featuring resourceful and imaginative improvisers and sound artists – accordionist and electronics player Emilie Škrijelj, drummer Tom Malmendier (Škrijelj and Malmendier collaborate on countless projects), live electronics and «space» player  Armand Lesecq and cello and electronics player  Stéphane Clor. The quartet describes its music as a one-sequence-shot movie where the listeners go through animated landscapes that are transformed as sound elements appear and disappear. The quartet develops its improvisations by merging acoustic instrumental tones with sampling electroacoustic technics.

Concert à Bruismeis the sophomore album of the quartet, recorded live during the Bruisme Festival in Poitiers, France in June 2021. And follows Latitudes (released by Škrijelj and Malmendier’s label, eux sæm, 2021). Clor drew and designed the cover. Concert à Bruismeis is intended to be experienced with good headphones that would capture the sonic experience of the live binaural mixing by Lesecq. It

Concert à Bruismeis offers a 41-minute enigmatic and poetic piece that develops organically with a great focus on detail, uncompromising and restless energy, and with such tight interplay that transforms nuits into inseparable, one sonic entity. The focus on extended techniques, augmented with imaginative usage of electronics, allows the acoustic accordion, drums and cello to resonate into each other sonic palettes and to melt with the live electronics.

French scholar Manon Thiery mentions in her liner notes that Rainer Maria Rilke wrote: «I believe in nights». And believing in the darkest is only possible if we map this invisible space based on the noises that define its limits. nuits offers a compelling and profound listening experience, full of intriguing and suggestive cinematic images and sounds (and noises).

Eyal Hareuveni

Stéphane Clor (cello), Emilie Skrijelj (accordion), Armand Lesecq (live electronics), Tom Malmendier (drums)