Julien Bigorgne - Encore
JULIEN BIGORGNE
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Listen to the whole album : https://monades.fanlink.to/julienbigorgne
CD is available here : https://julienbigorgne.bandcamp.com/album/monades
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Few things about "Encore" : this is the 6th track of Monades album by the French jazz flautist and oud player Julien Bigorgne.
The introduction of the piece is directly inspired by the piece "Lilia" by Milton Nascimento. I discovered this song in 2004 thanks to the cover recorded by the Brazilian guitarist Nelson Veras on his eponymous album. In his cover, Nelson Veras uses voice, guitar and Fender Rhodes to interpret the main melody ; the choice of these instruments seems to enhance the melody better than the original version. This example demonstrates how important is the question of arrangement in the expression of a melody, which makes the cover version more effective than the original recording in this example.
After this brief tonal introduction, the bass comes in at 01:24 and settles on an ostinato which allows the development of the main theme opening the way for the flute solo at 03:33.
The piece is thus a slow progression which starts from a tonal universe inspired by Milton Nascimento, which then develops a more open modal universe reminiscent of Erik Satie, then concludes with a sometimes atonal solo. Throughout the piece, the melodic exploration consists in keeping the same melodic identity while varying the contexts.
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Few things about Monades album :
Passionate about traditional Turkish, Indian and African music, Julien Bigorgne has composed 14 instrumental pieces, a bit like the Orientalists, borrowing from these traditional musics their colors and rhythms while reinterpreting them. A long work of maturation gives to the compositions a contemporary character that stands out from the clichés too often conveyed by "World Music".
Alternatively on the transverse flute and the oud (the Arab lute), Julien Bigorgne is accompanied by Shankar Kirpalani on double bass and Camille Petit on piano with whom he has shared many collaborations over the last fifteen years.
Throughout this musical discourse of more than an hour, in which improvisations are almost absent, the titles of the album are marked by the obsession to propose melodies that are simple to hear, holding the attention long after listening ; we will see in this approach a heritage of popular traditional music.
Carried by an omnipresent minimalism, the melodies are pure, self-sufficient, indivisible, embracing the philosophical concept of Monades.
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Main musical influences of the melodies on the Monades record: Avishai Cohen, Anouar Brahem, Bojan Z., Daniel Mille, Jurassic 5, Nirvana, Erik Satie, Philip Glass, Hamza el Din, Chilly Gonzales, Aaron Goldberg, Moondog.
Thanks to Simha Arom for his work as an ethnomusicologist, which was put to great use in the compositions on the Monades record.
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This project is edited by the label LEM (Music Exploration Laboratory), a label dedicated to rhythmic perception in music. This is the 7th record of this label (LEM07).
Video directed by Alice Petit.
Images Darius Vernhes.
Musicians on the record :
Julien Bigorgne : Oud, Flute, Kalimba
Camille Petit : Piano, Vibraphone
Shankar Kirpalani, Béla Bluche : Double Bass
Juliette Weiss : Violin
Nadia Mejri-Chapelle : Cello
Sophie Raynaud : Bassoon
Recorded and mixed at Claudia Sound Studio (Paris)
by Maxime Lefèvre
© LEM 2020