We are very excited to announce a new release ! Both a digital album and artist book, Le fruit vert and Delphine Dora’s « À La Becque » is a distillation of sketches and experimentations recorded in our practice studio at La Becque, an artist residency in La Tour-de-Peilz (Switzerland). The publication comprises 12 pages printed on a risograph, and includes a hyperlink to download seven improvisations (keyboards, voice, synthesizers and objects; 38 minutes). Limited edition of 150 copies.
In July of 2019, Delphine Dora and Le fruit vert sojourned at La Becque artist residence in La Tour-de-Peilz (Switzerland). Here they prepared a performance to be given at Festival La Cité in Lausanne (Switzerland), in the context of the carte blanche given to three:four records. From this encounter, a lively musical conversation emerged. À La Becque is a distillation of sketches, experimentations, and improvisations recorded in their practice studio. It is also a project that marks the beginning of a friendship, crystallizing a collaboration that began from a distance, several months earlier when Delphine Dora invited Le fruit vert to compose arrangements for two pieces that appear on her record, L’inattingible (2020, three:four records).
Designed and printed on a risograph by Marie-Douce St-Jacques, the twelve-page booklet that accompanies this digital release can be likened to a game in collage form. The musicians, which we chance upon making field recordings — are cut out and dispersed across the landscape, creating a series of intriguing tableaux.
Conatus is a duo composed by Delphine Dora and Žils Deless-Vēliņš (Lunt).
Both have been knowing each other for a long time, and were involved in musical activities. Conatus is a reference to Spinoza philosophy. Our music tries to create a dynamic of growth and becoming (Heraclite, Deleuze) with a strong dialectic process. Atmospheric layers of raw sounds and Deles ‘drones, and drums, match with Dora’s post-jazz piano lines, and minimalistic contemporary classical patterns. Closest musical reference could be Gastr Del Sol, or some SYR albums. Result is this idiosyncratic mix of experiments and meditative atmospheres, where melancholic silent spaces cross with wild mineral sounds.
Composed by Delphine Dora and Lunt Piano Recorded by Delphine Dora, Other sounds Žils Deless-Vēliņš Arrangements, mix and mastering by Lunt
ATTN : Magazine :
« What is it that binds the instruments on Empty Spaces? Certainly not a common tonality. Delphine Dora’s piano splays like a tenuous constellation of stars, each note like a wry harmonic rebuttal to the one prior, while the contributions of Žils Deless-Vēliņš – forming variously as plucked guitars, hushed voices, tapped cymbals and chimes, throbbing drones –interject like unexpected turns in the weather, both jarring and inevitable. Conatus exude a quiet confidence in the fact that the elements will cohere, and that itself is sufficient to make it so. It’s all about the execution. Patience but never hesitation. Strange contrasts in texture (strained breaths and snare brushes) emerge and recede, yet the duo never pause to acknowledge them. Instead these pieces mimic the idle sway of wind chimes, forming an array of collisions whose rhythm, however erratic, is a mere product of the fluctuations in nature’s whim; melodic only ever by accident, and beautiful because it never tries to be. Dora’s piano seems to be the source of this feeling. Her cascade of notes never stops – only ever thickens, quickens or slows – and Deless-Vēliņš slips effortlessly into this flow of unmediated happening, giving rise to strange drumbeats and vocal mutterings as it feels correct to do so, never attempting to rationalise a process that so clearly circumvents the zone of conscious thought. »
« Delphine Dora may be one of the more unlikely AMPLIFY 2020 participants, as compared to previous contributors her work has increasingly steered towards more outwardly folk and pop song forms. In fact, her latest full-length album, ‘L’inattingible’, is arguably her most ambitious and highly orchestrated statement yet, marking a major creative leap forward for her as a songwriter and composer. If you haven’t heard that album yet, carve out some time to check it out. It’s truly magical.
But, to refer to Dora as a songwriter, and a songwriter alone, is grossly misleading. Start combing through her back catalog and you’ll uncover a startling range of material. Through solo and collaborative releases on her self-run label, Wild Silence, to more poetry driven works and other efforts with Sophie Cooper and Bruno Duplant, you’ll find an artist that is working across a broad range of styles that often times straddles the lines between jazz, improvisation, modern classical, avant folk, ambient, field recordings, etc. Ultimately, her body of work displays a pure love affair with sound, which at the end of the day is why we are all here, right? When asked recently about what she has been doing during this quarantine period, she wrote that from her countryside location in France one of the things has been “…deeply and carefully listening to the sounds outside – the birds singing – and trying to savour the subtlety and beautiful quality of sound around.”With that, Delphine has submitted a piece for AMPLIFY 2020 titled ‘lost in my dreams, a nightmare maybe’ that was composed between April 26-28 using piano, keyboards, modular synth, objects, field recordings, vocals. »
(David Perron)
I’ve been lucky to participate to an online workshop organized by EPAS in Ghent, some weeks ago, on field recordings by the excellent Kate Carr. i’ve realized some new pieces. One of them, an unreleased piece of mine called ‘New dimensions’ has been broadcast on Kate’s show called INTERIORITIES, with some other nice contributions.
Show could be listened here : https://www.mixcloud.com/katecarr54/interiorities-sonic-experiments-and-documents-from-lockdown-episode-3-rtm-april-19-2020/ This show focuses on sonic experiments, works in progress and field recordings taken during lockdown. It was broadcast 15:00 Sunday April 19, on RTM. Stream via RTM here: https://rtm.fm/
I’m working actually on a series of new compositions based mostly on field recordings and instrumentations related to this period on my near environment and natural surrounding. Here’s one of other piece made at the same period.
New Bandcamp page . We’ve put a new EP « l’insondable humanité » and a live recording in Glasgow, before releasing our upcoming new album in 2021 in the new parallel Okraina Label, By The Bluest Of Seas.
Delphine Dora & Sophie Cooper – Greywood Miniatures pt II
14 improvisations of piano/trombone improvisations made three years ago in Greywood Arts Residency, with my dear Sophie Cooper, release now on bandcamp : « it’s the most minimal stuff we’ve ever done, and I think it’s one of my favorite ».
Delphine Dora first came to our attention through her output on her self-run label, Wild Silence. Since that initial discovery, she has gone on to issue a number of solo and collaborative works across several other notable labels such Fort Evil Fruit, Feeding Tube Records, Power Moves Library, Okraïna and more. Her back catalog covers a remarkably broad range of styles that often straddles the lines between jazz, improvisation, modern classical, avant folk, ambient, drone, and field recordings. Her work, more than anything, displays a pure fascination with sound. Her latest full-length album, L’inattingible, is arguably her most ambitious and highly orchestrated statement yet, marking a major creative leap forward for her as a songwriter and composer. It’s one of our favorite albums of 2020 so far, so we reached out to Delphine via email and she was kind enough to respond to our questions about her new album and more. After reading this Q & A, we encourage you to check out the recordings that Delphine has available on her Bandcamp page and to support her efforts in whatever way that you can.
How are you doing right now with all that is happening in the world? What is life like in your part of France?
I’m living in a small village of 100 people in the center of France in the countryside. I feel very lucky to be at this location at this moment of history, far from epidemics. To have space around and nature is a great privilege also. At the same time, I am very affected by what is happening now. I couldn’t think of anything else the first days and again still the events and the current situation are very present in my consciousness. It’s very hard to live without caring and without paying any attention to it.
Some years ago, I did some short soundtracks of scenes of different films where Max Von Sydow performed (these music have been never released yet). I found back in my archives and here’s one piece taken inspiration by « hour of wolf » movie, I composed with a flutist friend (Thomas Vatant-Antonelli).
* Play it loud please (because sound can be a bit low) *
Composed by Delphine Dora & Thomas Vatant-Antonelli in 2017.
Delphine Dora : piano Thomas Vatant-Antonelli : flutes
Black Truffle and Mould Museum are pleased to announce the release of Thanking You. Compiled by Francis Plagne, Thanking You is a portrait of a network of friends and collaborators, offering up nine unreleased tracks over a running time of almost seventy minutes. Though the tracks presented here are either solo or duo affairs, many of these artists have worked together in other contexts; multiple threads of shared sensibility run through these pieces.
Opening with a lo-fi tape collage work centred on gamelan, environmental sound and drifting electronic tones from Oren Ambarchi and Will Guthrie, we are then presented with an epic fifteen minute piece for church organ by James Rushford, moving from wavering, uneasy chords to a wheezing hymnal conclusion. Rohan Drape contributes an austere yet characteristically affecting piece for microtonal electronics and piano, while Delphine Dora scatters keyboard fragments according to the inscrutable logic of chance. Closing the first side, Alex Macfarlane’s unique take on song takes unexpected turns, coming across like a bedroom tribute to Jade Warrior.
On the second side, Andrew Chalk and Daisuke Suzuki’s ‘Natsukodachi’ (meaning ‘summer trees’) layers electric guitar and field recordings of buzzing insects to conjure up a dream of summer afternoon heat. Tim Coster’s layers of synth and keyboard tones (sourced from the work of a certain well-known French composer) and rustling domestic sounds (sourced from the work of a certain well-known French film director) gently drift along side by side, interacting in surprising ways. Joe Talia offers up a dynamic slice of synth and tape, a rougher, more gritty complement to the sparkling electroacoustic expanse of 2018’s Tint. Finally, Julia Reidy’s surging closer yokes together guitar, raw electronics and room sounds into a lurching, staggering assemblage that eventually makes way for gently chiming tones.
My piece « quelque chose de hasardeux » has been featured on Adventures on Sound and Music presented by Frances Morgan. Show and playlist here.
En 2019, I’ve released two limited tapes edition, now sold out at source.
The first one « dunkles zu sagen » on Ingeborg Bachmann poetry. Thanks to Fort Evil Fruit for trust, to Andrew Chalk for the wonderful artwork and Sean McCann for the mastering.
« Like most of the records I have heard from this french artist, Dunkles Zu Sagen is imbued with a shimmer both intimate and experimental. Dora is working here with poems by the late Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann ( a somewhat tragic figure in the history of Post-Second World War feminist literature). The title can be translated several ways but the one I like the best is Expressing The Dark. And even I cannot understand a single world of the vocals, the plain-woven piano playing and stark vocals evoke a deep intellectualism that is none the less real for being a phantom. Admittedly, I was ready to be stunned by the darkness. But stunned I am. » (Review by Byron Coley, The Wire)
Greywood Miniatures is one of my last collaboration with Sophie Cooper. This album have been done mainly at Greywood Arts Residency, in County Cork., in Irland. Then we did some overdubs at home. This album have been released on tape on Dark Outside label, limited in 50 copies. Sold out in less than 24 hours, you can hear entirely on bandcamp and download for a « name-your-price ».
Pour fêter ce disque, le nouveau collectif « l’affinité des sols » m’a demandé de faire un mix sur le thème du folklore, de la féminité et de la terre. Voici le mix que je leur ai proposé (On y trouve notamment quelques musiciennes ayant participé au disque et autres sources d’inspiration) :
Louise Landes Levi – Part V
Jackie McDowell – Hats off to (Hal) Borland
Anahita – Spiral Of Ulmaria
Natalie Rose Lebrecht – Lost
Spires That In The Sunset Rise – Let The Crows Fly
Collie Ryan – Prairie Day Lady
Brannten Schnüre – Blut Auf Der Gosbertsteige
Current 93 – When The May Rain Comes
Sam McLoughlin & Bridget Hayden – Pluto
Kathleen Baird – With Which These Waters swarm
Fursaxa – Desiree
Emmanuelle Parrenin – Maison Rose
Aine O’Dwyer – Knownunknown
Sylvia Hallett – White Fog
Lau Nau – Keinu Taipuu Alla
Magahi – six songs (extract)
Meredith Monk – Quarry Lullaby
Josephine Foster – The Peak Of Paradise
Voici quelques chroniques :
Ce disque a été classé dans les 10 albums préférés de la décennie par Julia Holter.
« Trop d’amis (dont Sylvia Hallett, Le fruit vert, Lau Nau) pour tous les nommer, trop d’instruments pour tous les énumérer colorent cette épopée fantomatique signée Delphine Dora. Cordes, vents, synthétiseurs analogiques, sons électroniques, accordéon, bruits divers : c’est un véritable orchestre là-dedans. Mais tout en retenue. La Française invoque avec ce disque en français une spiritualité éthérée ancrée dans les éléments, prenant son essence dans un passé païen et gothique. Demi-incantations, les mots de Dora sont faits d’une poésie du mystère et de l’émerveillement. Les courtes pièces de L’inattingible (déjà, ce titre, c’est beau, non ?) sont une illusion psychédélique collectivement assemblée sous la commande d’un cerveau rêveur. La beauté du geste collectif, c’est qu’il tisse un enchevêtrement anonyme. À qui appartient cette voix, cette note, ce râle ? Qu’importe. »
« (…) L’Inattingible has the feel of a big statement – for starters, Dora has taken collaboration much further than in the past and the cast of contributors is extensive. The fourteen contributors include vocalists Jackie McDowell, Laura Naukkarinen and Caity Shaffer, several multi-instrumentalists including Gayle Brogan on e-bowed zither, guitar, hammered dulcimer and aeolian chimes, and she’s even integrated Québecquois duo Le Fruit Vert. Those familiar with Dora’s work will know about the melodically and emotionally indeterminate spaces she inhabits but there’s plenty that is new here: she sings entirely in French for the first time, and the process of crafting (writing and editing) the 21 pieces has been more involved than the spontaneous approach she has previously favoured. Without becoming overburdened, Dora’s voice and piano are richly embellished – the gorgeous ‘Loin’ floats on a bed of keyboard, strings, flute and a gathering cloud of vocals, while the brief ‘Métamorphose Déracinée’ brings together spoken word, distant, beguiling oboe, running water, piano and creaking, fluttering and rattling noises. Each track is like another glimpse into an abandoned ornamental garden; vegetation grown wild, water still flowing through cracked fountains, echoes of voices carried on the breeze. »
A beautiful lullaby-esque soundscape, this. The soothing French vocals a paper boat floating out on a lilting tide of gentle disquiet, instrumentals that subtly blur boundaries. Something that’s especially true of “L’inexploré”’s panoramas, with an avant classical verve where the fragments of narration ease you elsewheres. Dora’s invited lots of like-minded musicians to help her sculpt this recording, including Pefkin’s Gayle Brogan and Fonal’s Laura Naukkkarinen (Lau Nau) amongst others, an array of talent fleshing out Dora’s unique piano/vocal work with plenty of extra colour. Aeolian chimes, stones, bicycle wheels and musical saws, as well as a tirade of chorusing extras that calligraphically dine, slip psychedelically into your ear. L’inattingible is an inspired piece of work that’s attentively observed, its shapes left to mirage, elusively flutter as they unearth buried sensations from the sediment. (…) A sweet delirium that holds you captive, captivated, cuts through all this February greyness with its felt-like warmth.
Delphine Dora veröffentlichte in den vergangenen Jahren auf eigenen Mikrolabels oder denen von Freunden und Gleichgesinnten ausgiebig Musik. Ob auf Kassette, CD-R, File oder Schallplatte bei engagierten Labels wie Okraina oder Three:Four Records; ihrer Musik immer eigen ist eine unbefangene Spontanität bei gleichzeitig leidenschaftlicher Ernsthaftigkeit, ganz im Sinne von Eriks Saties Definition des Amateurs. Bislang waren alle ihre Veröffentlichungen Solo- oder Duoaufnahmen, oft entstanden mit seelenverwandten und befreundeten Musikern wie Mocke, Sophie Cooper, Valerie Leclercq, Eloise Decazes und einigen anderen feinen Zeitgenossen. Zuletzt erschien die hervorragende Solo-LP Eudaimon mit Lyrics der außerhalb Großbritanniens kaum auf Aufmerksamkeit gestoßenen Poetin aus Northumberland Kathleen Raine. Auf ihrem zweiten Album für das Lausanner Label three:four records L’Inattingible singt die auf dem Land lebende Pariserin nun zum ersten Mal auschließlich Songs in ihrer Muttersprache und Lyrics, die sie selbst verfasste. L’Inattingible entstand auch nicht aus dem Stehgreif, sondern über mehrere Jahre mit der Idee von einem Konzeptablum im Kopf. Bemerkenswerterweise zähmte diese Arbeitsweise keinesfalls den ihr innewohnenden wilden Geist. Die durchwegs melancholisch aufgeladene Musik pendelt stilsicher zwischen spirituellen, traumähnlichen, zwischenweltlich-geisterhaften und surrealen Aggregatzuständen. Stimme und Klavier bleiben auch auf dieser Platte, bei der bei jedem Song zahlreiche Gäste mitwirken – von Nau Nau, Aby Vulliamy, Adam Caddell, Gayle Brogan über Valérie Leclercq, Susan Mathews bis zu Paulo Chagas, Sylvia Hallett und Le Fruit Vert – die wichtigsten Gestaltungsmittel für eine gleichzeitig freie wie strenge, immer noch karg auf das Notwendigste reduzierte Musik. Delphine Dora beherrscht meisterhaft, sie prägende oder stimulierende musikalische Stile wie Free Folk, Klavier – und Kammermusik, Drone oder Liedformen oder wegweisende Figuren wie Nico, Brigitte Fontaine, Schubert oder Satie subtil zu zitieren. Die meist kurzen Stücke, bei denen Dora singt, wirken oft etwas windschief an der Harmonie vorbeigehangelt. Bei den anderen rezitiert sie Gedichte, Fragmente und Kurzgeschichten und beschwört eine mysteriöse Atmosphäre herauf, was mich irgendwie an das wunderbare Projekt von Alain Neffe und Nadine Bal Cortex aus den 1980ern denken lässt. Auf ihre ganz eigene Art wagt sich Delphine Dora auch mit dem zentralen Stück des Albums – dem aus vier Teilen bestehenden und auf der Platte verteilten Lumière Aveugle – in eine abstrakte und wacklig-brüchige Welt der Kammermusik vor.
