A strange water ritual operated by Belladonna, Jos and Ninke's black dog in the brook of Geulle in the Netherlands. Three plastic bottles played by Sophie Durand, Michael Northam et Manu Holterbach, Aurora Borealis VLF frequencies by Stephen P.McGreevy, enharmonic glasses played by Orbes, "Tu-Yos" played by Jean-François Laporte and Martin Ouellet. In june 2002, I spent 15 days residency at Ninke and Jos Kamp house in the forest of Geulle near Maastricht in the Netherlands. I was invited there by Pierre Berthet, curator this year of Stichting Intro's third Machomet Festival, to realize an outdoor sound installation in Jos and Ninke's patio, as much as the first concert of my enharmonic glasses with my wife Sophie Durand. This place was surrounded by a beautiful forest; birds, insects, wind in the trees and brooks were the omnipresent background sounds. I should add that I was by the time very obsessed by Stephen P.McGreevy's VLF recordings of aurora borealis…
These days were a quiet flow, positioned by the setting up of my low-speakers installation, the rehearsals of my fellow composer Jean-François Laporte and his pal Martin Ouellet, Pierre Berthet was also working around with Jos Kamp small ensemble, and I was also spending a lot of time drifting in the wood with Jos and Ninke's dog Belladonna… This big black dog was constantly leading the walk toward one of the brooks flowing around the house, and there, could spend hours doing something that looked very much like a strange ritual : she would take a big stone in her jaws to move it from one place to another, once on the top of dead branches carried by the stream, then inside the stream, then among other stones, everytime with a pause while she would observe the stone, barking this very musical way, almost singing, growling and biting it as if she was expecting something to happen…! It wasn't an old dog, but Belladonna was doing this so often that her canine teeth were no longer pointed but flat ! I've spent long moments just observing her, fascinated by this strange and mythical behaviour… "Belladonna Borealis" summerizes some of the sounds i've used in my low-speakers installations, the field-recordings of the rehearsals and Belladona's ritual, and is the synthesis I've composed in 2006 in my studio in Lyon of this beautiful mesmerizing 15 days… "Belladonna Borealis" is the second piece from a collection of eight synthesis of the sound-installions i've done between 1997 and 2004 called "Archives Synthétiques".
Belladonna Borealis (10:40)
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