Snowdrops is the duo of French composer-pianist Christine Ott, one of the leading explorers of the vintage electric keyboard, ondes Martenot, and vintage analog synth player-composer Mathieu Gabry, that was formed in 2015 and suggests chamber, cosmic-cinematic journeys with a unique blend of contemporary classical music, modern jazz, electronics and ambient. The duo’s fourth album, Singing Stones (volume 1), is the first album in a series of compositions celebrating slow time and long time, light and dark. The album’s artwork was made by Belgian artist Julie Calbert, based on works from her ‘Hyperion’ series.
The album opens with the mysterious «Corridors», dedicated to Thai film director Phuttiphong Aroonpheng, for whom Snowdrops composed the soundtracks to his first two feature films, Manta Ray in 2018 (that won the Best Film in the Orizzonti section at the Venice Film Festival) and Morrison in 2023. «Corridors» was inspired by Morrison and structured like a small symphony of breaths, in search of presence and meaning, with surprising therapeutic qualities.
Singing Stones revolves around two extended pieces. The first one, «Crossing», offers Snowdrops’ more experimental-progressive palette, with a dreamy and ethereal, ambient alchemy of analog and acoustic timbres comprised of an evocative blend of the acoustic piano and the electric ondes Martenot. The unsettling and intense «Arctic Passage» suggests images of a nocturnal crossing on thin ice, and decomposing icebergs, and warns us that the natural vestiges of our world may disappear.
«Ligne de Mica» was composed an exhibition by French visual artist Léa Barbazanges who impressed Snowdrops with her usage of intense colors of the mineral, whose optical properties change according to the angle of view. This piece, with guest accordionist Bartosz Szwarc, attempts to recreate in sound a similar effect of Barbazanges’ visual work where the waveforms of the ondes Martenot, the analog synth and the bass accordion create an enigmatic sonic entity. «The Weather Project», with violist Anne-Irène Kempf and Szwne, references Icelandic–Danish artist Olafur Eliasson’s monumental site-specific installation employed with a semi-circular screen, a ceiling of mirrors, and artificial mist, and suggests Tangerine Dream-tinged, dramatic atmospheric soundscape.
The brief «Phase One» sounds as if Snowdrops adopts Steve Reich-ian vocabulary into its own aesthetics. Szware joins Snowdrops for the last, neo-classical «The River» and «Dreamers», both pieces cement the suggestive, dreamy-cinematic veins of Singing Stones.
Eyal Hareuveni
Christine Ott (ondes Martenot, piano, xylophone), Mathieu Gabry (piano, keyboards, electric hurdy-gurdy, vibraphone), Anne-Irène Kempf (viola), Bartosz Szwarc (accordion)
