Crossed Questions
Guitar Duets Series Noël Akchoté w. Charlie Rauh, Manu Adnot, Augustin Brousseloux, Jean-Christophe Renvoyer
1.- What do you expect from a collaborative work? What are you looking for sharing a musical space? What do you move from playing in duo? What do you like from a music teamwork? What's the gratification of a shared musical work?
Noël Akchoté
Those recordings are what we call Correspondence albums. In other words: I've asked each of the artists to record some music and send it to me, and then recorded over, but each as an original organic duet. Does this alter the collaborative aspects of it? Not at all for me. In terms of expectations, I think I don't have any other ones than the very simple fact of sharing and crossing approaches, practices, perspectives, ways, moments. Maybe like a picture of a given moment and time. Probably also that all this always takes me back to were I started, meaning that for long time I mostly played and practiced in duet with another guitar players (when I was 13-14 we all had routines, did our scales, harmony, sight reading exercises from the morning to noon and then called each others to see what opportunities were to meet and just play, mostly standards at that time). And often we went to gigs straight away, playing bars, hotels, restaurants in duets too, so that I kept a sort of home feeling about it.
Charlie Rauh
One of the things I value most about a collaborative project is not knowing what to expect.Noël contacted me out of the blue and asked me to be part of this project, neither of us knowing much about each other. I am so grateful that he did! With these duets, since Noël and I were recording separately, I played brief improvisations and imagined another voice being present. What I did NOT do however is try to hear that voice. I wanted to play as if Noël was simultaneously playing with me, but at the same time not assume where he would be more supportive or more upfront. It was very difficult! However hearing what he added to the frameworks I started was extremely gratifying. The duo pieces truly sound conversational to me. Noël’s brilliant ability to listen, react, and lead with his playing is very apparent in bringing this about.
Manu Adnot
It's hard to talk about it without using common senses. I think duet sessions are kind of fragile events, it creates very intimate link between only two musicians which make our music takes a very responsible way. Meaning that when u're playing in a band, we can think in a way that responsability can be shared between different sections, but in duet project there's no way out. It's also the opportunity to come back to the real thing, as only your fingers/your body connected directly to the strings/to music. I love the mood from the last album's title from metal band Sepultura: “the Mediator between head and hands must be the heart”, it really reflects what musician i expect to be and i can say Noël really got that thing- it's an honor for me to play with him. But in this duet series, it's also something particular because we record home alone each other, so we have to make something happening all by yourself first of all, without the air blowing around, without the weight from his partner' sound. I think that one important direction to be a good musician is playing music that immediatly can be shared, with musicians, with the audience. This time it was a really good opportunity to create music with this constraint of distance and time- the fact that the other is recording in another day, in another place is very interesting because directly connected with my idea that Art is always a question of “Time” feeling, that it can be the only place where you can find another way to feel the “Time”-in a world which is directed by the time from commercials/tv/radio/internet- i love that---- i love to practice a different kind of Time.
Augustin Brousseloux
Its not my first duet recording and I must admit that each time its a total blast and each time a total different sensation. Each new duet is a new experience so far, and each time we need to try to renew ourselves but without giving up on what we are, how we play ... and that's the biggest part of the job. Once you're started all comes very naturally to me and its a real pleasure though. And once you recorded your own parts what's most exciting is to imagine what will the other play and do with it. What comes out is always surprising, sometimes less than others, but there's always a good part of surprise. With this particular duet I didn't expect that at all! And that's what I like so much with Noël, he always does something different, each release is surprising but you recognize him each time immediately. What matters most in such duets for me is that each musician gets enough place to be able to play that game.
Jean-Christophe Renvoyer
First of all I'd like to thanks Noël again for this unique project and for his eye to recognize real guitar music passionates, this without even really meeting them often. without stopping at the styles questions, nor age differences, experiences or tastes - guitar music and curiosity is here the main and real link between each player. For me its been an incredible occasion to open up in fact. As we all come from different scenes and practices (but all improvising), this exchange and interplay with Noël, each keeping his own sound and approach, really brought something new to each I find. Personally I do a lot of jazz gigs (duos, trios, 4tet), mostly playing standards, which is an experience he has had as well (playing loads of bars and hotels in his early times) and even he went many other roads since, he never turned down that side of the work, which I guess is a clear link between us. I started later, coming from other jobs before, and to me such projects are very exciting and motivating today along with my own projects moving forward as well. He is for me probably what Philip Catherine, Tal Farlow, Christian Escoudé or even Derek Bailey have been for him! The other side of this project is for me related to internet and these new social networks, and what possibilities they bring and offer today. Although we're same age with Noël, he has had the chance to travel and meet a lot of people since earliest age, where others like me might have had to stay more local, but such projects precisely shows that we can share a lot wherever we live now. Even we all stay in a different part of the world (I live since my childhood in a small village in the west part of France), we could, grace to these new technologies, well play, share and create together now. I guess that meeting for real and playing next to each other would bring another experience but again this has been an incredible opening experience to me. As for playing in duet, its a regular setting for me, particularly the Guitar & Double-Bass one, but funnily I realized now that I barely never did play in duet with another guitarist, making this a sort of première with Noël even more gratifying.
2.- How do you hear the sound of other musician? How do you feel the sound of other musician? How do you sense the sound of another musician? How do you feel the lines of other musician to react with him? How do you give back a music sensation playing in a duo?
Charlie Rauh
I try to experience playing music with other musicians in every way that I feel I am lacking in personal interaction. When playing music, it seems to me that it is more possible to give, and be
given to, through interaction. The central intent behind playing music with other artists for me is to be individually foundational. I am interested in sensing what is played in a way that makes the other
player or players feel supported while simultaneously provoking them to move into new territory.
Manu Adnot
I think, as i said before, that u're music have to be shared anyway with musicians, with the audience (physically/not physically). In this particular situation i don't “feel” the sound of Noël because he's not here. But nevermind: i give elements, he gives elements. He follows or not, i follow or not. I think u don't have to care about leaving space to the other, the space can be anywhere, in the intentions, in the dynamics, in the expression. Noël is free to play as he want and so do i. That kind of play -leaving the space- makes already a new constraint, i don't want to think as “solo”/”ure turn”. Doing this project, without any pressure/label/money (even if it's our work too, being a musician) is a important opportunity to create music which is not a posture. The last time i felt that was with my friend Cédric Thimon in our project “Détruire tous les humains” (“Destroy all humans”).
Augustin Brousseloux
I'm very careful to what the other plays, in a duet, and whether recorded at same time or not its the same. I totally dive in the other's playing and things become easier that way for me, it all comes naturally then. In that particular duet, it wasn't the case because I send my first takes to Noël, but when he sent me the mix with his parts I again listened to it very carefully.
Its very interesting to listen to a guitar player improvising on one of your improvisations, how he hears and feels, reacts and respond to what you first played. And when its done so brilliantly with two musicians totally tuned together, its an incredible experience.
Jean-Christophe Renvoyer
Listening to a musician, his sound, his inner voice is a primary element to me. He may be strong or more intimate, violent or whispering... all can take my whole attention if one really is incarnated. I'm also very attracted to the rhythmical aspect, the drive of a musician: guys can have all the harmonic and theoretical background, if his rhythmical articulation isn't there, it won't work for me. Of course soon will come in my scope the phrasing and harmonic aspect too, but to name just two, when I first heard Chet and Dolphy, it wasn't their choice of not but their sound, voice and phrasing that really got me. To go back to our duet, paying with someone new will certainly affect your own playing, bringing new ideas or perspectives, but even this happened, I don't see it radically changes your own phrasing and articulation, its more about a new context, new pictures, than you suddenly changing totally. It of course varies with people, but I see with others, their playing in fact evolves rather slowly, its rather a color question to me. Noël would better answer this aspect but as I can imagine he also had to adapt to each of us, probably on the spot as he heard it, with each of us playing, on those first recordings we sent him. I know he didn't listen to each complete takes before recording his own and i'm pretty impressed how he managed to find himself through each of us. When he asked me to collaborate this project and series I didn't want to think too much before recording my parts, I know see I probably sent him my more usual jazz side, with changes and lines. But the final result is very different from what I would have myself recorded as a second part, though it really works together I find. Someone left a comment I quite like on a streaming post : "different roads flowin' so smoothly".
Noël Akchoté
I do listen to the other of course but my feeling is that in such contexts the presence of the other happens another level mostly. The fact (or paradox one may say), that the other's part is pre-recorded (although I don't listen much to their part before recoding really, on purpose) kinds of disappears totally when I start mine. What comes first is the room, the place, their timing. Each of the players had a very different place they recorded from, maybe that room-place tells at first the most to me. Its like I started to see, feel them in their own context, daily room and somewhere more intimately than if we had been recording as a real duet in a same place or spot. We might have “dressed” (put forms?), things more if we did do it as a classic duet. Its from those elements, that particular room-pace that each's playing starts to open and talk to me.
3.- How do you interact in one collaboration? How have you interacted in this collaboration? How's the musical dialogue in this collaboration?
Charlie Rauh
In a collaborative setting I try to interact on a side by side level. I feel the interaction of making music with people is drastically changed when it begins with the establishment of : “I am playing with you, not at you”. I definitely feel Noël takes this approach. This project is so interesting because I recorded improvisations and sent them to him, he had total freedom to play over a pre recorded track!
So many musicians would use this opportunity as making the already recorded part a “jam track” and just solo over it. From what I knew of Noël, I did not ever expect this from him - but I was blown away to hear that what he added truly sounded as if we had recorded at the same time, with as much sensitivity and listening as one could apply.
Manu Adnot
For me i want to be in a comfortable situation. I mean that i can speak freely, play freely, and feel a good vibe from the other. I really liked this collaboration with Noël because it was very simple in fact: we record, we send directly the music online, i like that. And even if i respect the great musician he is and all, i never felt this “heritage”, i mean that we played music in 2014 and that's all, i never felt any weight- and that kind of experience is precious for me.
Augustin Brousseloux
Before recording I often play a few second or minutes just to see which track to explore, but without the smallest idea of what I will play. I take it as it comes, and all comes naturally, once again. The most important side for me is the intensity – if I'm not totally inside what I play, I don't get any pleasure from it, and i'm pretty sure it'll fail. But if i'm totally in it, not thinking about anything else around anymore, than I can feel I will certainly like the result. In a duet, and this one particularly, I've tried to understand what could fit, in order to leave the right place to the other musician for him to reply to what I proposed. Listening to this album I really feel our two approaches melted in their own differences, and therefore shows a real continuity.
Jean-Christophe Renvoyer
He didn't ask us anything special nor particular but to provide 6 tracks with a total freedom. When I started to record the only element I had was the title on the cover “Jazz Album” (openly an eye-blink to my actual gigs), but I think he is more able to react to what we proposed him than I might have been if he would have sent me the first takes. On my side as I listened quite some of his latest releases I could have had the tendency to follow him on that line, but I've let things come as they were, letting the stylistic aspect aside. The only question that came to me was the one of the instrument, playing my Gibson ES-175, thinking also that others would go a different way, thinking of the whole series balance. I knew before of Manu that I've heard with “Aeris” and I expected him to play with lots of distortions, and I was totally suprised to hear him fully acoustic, and amazingly well! I can't speak for Manu but I guess he had selected his acoustic the same way I did my ES-175. Anyway, when I started to record I really had no idea how the whole project would evolve, nor how it would look like.
Noël Akchoté
Well now more concretely each player has a unique and particular sense
of using and playing with the space (the space and his own space here). A unique way to pickup and melt musical elements such as Phrasing, Timing, Harmony, Tensions & Reliefs... a Musical Dramaturgy, I guess we could say. And for me, passed all the previous points I underlined above, when I get to this final moment of pressing the Rec. Button, its only their musical discourse that activates me. I try not to think much (generally I mean), but find our pitch, or rather tune myself to the other. In some cases I go through few false starts of the very first piece (a minute or so into it, leaving all the other material unplayed yet), until I feel closer, or “tuned”.
4.- What's your interpretation of the music results? Give me ten words about the music results? Is there any surprise in the music result? Where's the peculiar emotion in a sound born in a musical collaboration? How's the company feeling in this recording?
Charlie Rauh
Upon hearing the results of our collaboration, I found themusic to be very content. I listen, and I hear deliberate communication. I saved the recordings on my computer that I sent Noël, so that I could compare to the completed versions with his parts. When I did this, I heard my voice - my solitary thoughts. These thoughts are complete, they have their own universe and finite existence. However when Noël added his voice to the thoughts they became multi dimensional. No longer were they my thoughts alone, but half of a conversation that exposed the strengths, frailty, doubts, and triumphs in all points made. I believe this occurred mutually. It is the same feeling that happens when perhaps you think you have someone figured out, how they relate, communicate, etc. Yet when this
person is interacted with in conversation their identity is magnified.
Not changed, but visible in ways that make you reconsider your confidence in the understanding you believe you have of them. In 10 words I would say : room, identity, trust, vulnerability, courage, fun,
enlightening, space, voice, needed
Manu Adnot
Even if i already listened -and loved- to the Arthur Narcy/Noël duet and that my friend Arthur told me about it, when i received the final mix i was at first disapointed because i had listen to my tracks some times before sending them to bring some gain to the sound, and so first i really felt the distance of the recording process. But after some listenings i felt in love particularly with the first and the last track. I accept the defaults in improvised music- in fact we can say that they don't exist, that it's only expression, but i mean i accept the research, it's the real life, nothing's perfect, and in this duet when something's going on in the interaction/music it's going more far away than anything else- i'm in love with that. And i found that Noël plays with heart- it's beautiful, his sound is unique, i like identity in music and Noël got it. I also think that in improvised music we immediatly have to go away, to already think about the next project instead of keep listening to his last album. We made it- let's do something else. But i have to say i'm very proud of this recording- and also the visual Noël made- for me it's inspired by Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata and his book “Snow Country” that i was reading at that time.
Ha, ten words:
Japon/rien/créer/Ambre/?/Littérature/Moi/l'Espace/le Coeur/le Rythme
Augustin Brousseloux
I see this duet as a dialog, where notes are like words that forms phrases and verses, then paragraphs to become a poem. A poem where each leaves or creates the space for the other to chant his own poetry. To improvise his own poetry and be lifted by his guitar and own music. That's how I see it. The result is always surprising when you don't know what will come and appear in the next moment. But this duet is a “surprising-surprise”, in that sense that before starting I really could not expect this at all – and what came totally surpasses all my expectations. In 10 words: Share, Exchange, surprise, pleasure, dialog, poetry, surreal, openness, beginnings, history....
Jean-Christophe Renvoyer
What comes first to mind when listening to the project its how easily Noël does place himself, his sounds and approach, a wide range of ideas.... looking at how different first takes we each send him, I seen now the coherence of the whole, and how these four EP could very well stand as an album in itself in fact. This project shows well how intention in music primes to styles. Personally I also discovered awesome musicians that I had never heard of before! Again thanks to Noël for this incredible experience, and a huge hug to all – ten words? Play, again, project, music, sound, rhythm, passion, life, future, cheers!
Noël Akchoté
I would first of all talk of a Process result, like before and after you first met someone and had a nice chat with. Found what you share, what you differ with, what you could imagine or want to do together, also how each does work, how he (she) look and care for his own future in music (from projects to desires to explore further this or that area, you know guitarists, its always some gear to try, some scales to swallow, some players you love so much etc). The main result of these duets is that I really Feel I know much more of each of them, shared a unique and deeper moment inside their own playing and world.
To me this as a gesture is probably most important, it has even a sort of humanistic background, a sort of “let's get together, hands in hands” side. I've always felt as a child and member of a much wider guitar players family tree.
So that its Maybe a bit like a huge family lunch with more cousins and brothers, more members to get to know, and I care for all of them. Ten words... hum : Matter, Practice, Share, Instrumental, Confrontation (in the open sense, not in the conflictual one), Shape, Rhythm, Sound, 2014, In Progress, Tomorrow, Today, Yesterday.
Did you ever play more straight Jazz Gigs (Bebop, Swing, Straight Ahead...)?
Manu Adnot
No, and there are some reasons:
When i was at music school, i was looking at nowadays music instead of standards culture. I got a problem with the standards, i can't feel them, i don't found something to do in it, and i think that they are the most of the time very bad played. I'm very disapointed when i'm listening to a new musician with great compositions, playing a standard between them. I don't understand why they have to do that. I know there is a great history through them and i learned that at school, from Broadway and all that, but it's really not my culture, that's all. I got a bad experience too at the end of my studies with my diploma so i think i'm a little bit angry about that. I never named myself as a jazz musician, i only had to go to a music school where i could learn things i didn't know. I don't care about only jazz history, i'm interessed in music history, Art history. And also i didn't like the “old” sound of the electric guitar in jazz- i think it's too flat for me- i liked the sustain, the weight and didn't found it there at that time. I think too that we pass next to some musics that -i think- are the jazz of today- if we have to absolutely use that name “jazz” which for me, nowadays and as other terms (world music- argh...) is only a word used to put the discs in the shops. Anyway. I can say that i'm in love with Coltrane of course and lot of musicians as Henry Threadgill for exemple that i discovered at that time, but i'm interessed in expression in Art and it concerns as litterature, visuals arts, video games and cinema as music. ... OK, i have to say that i discovered the Allan Holdsworth's (i'm a big big fan) album “Gone too soon” where he plays only standards and really liked it!
Looking back at you guitar and musical career, do you see your work as a permanent evolution towards new approaches or rather a cyclic movement?
Noël Akchoté
Hum... good question. Well clearly as a “Return to”. But this said it could well sound pretty ambiguous or even deep fried nostalgia, and this is everything but the case. What happens is that I started very early and got to meet incredibly strong musicians with 13-14, I mean people like Tal Farlow, Philip Catherine, Coryell or Jim Hall, Abercrombie etc and it set since first age a very high level on me. For about 20 years at least I wanted nothing else but to continue playing but with that permanent feeling that there were little chances I come next to any of these people ever. Today (say since 10 years maybe), I forgot about that question (mostly, not totally but), so my all move is a circle clearly and a return to that particular debut moment. As a sort of my own intimate judgement, level or grade. Let's say that's where I challenge myself, to all these amazing players I still care a lot for and learn constantly from, but not having too much anymore the question of “how to sound your own”.
Why do You Have CC Pickups on your Guitar (How that came to you as a desire to play these, And do they Refer to Something Someone?
Charlie Rauh
I Love the single coil sound and prefer a two pickup arrangement (like a tele) I chose CC pickups because I wanted an airy but full tone from the guitar that I could use as a starting point to build the sound I get from my hands. I am also a huge admirer of Charlie Christian himself who made the
style of pickups famous, so I suppose you could say there is a bit of a homage there!. I have been listening to these players nonstop for quite some time : Mary Halvorson, Don Peris, Glenn Campbell, Wolfgang Muthspiel, and Dominic Miller
Why did you choose to play a large part on Nylon Strings Guitar?
Manu Adnot
Because i played only acoustic nylon guitar when i started at the age of 8 to the age of 20/21. And also that the fact of playing guitar only acoustic -without any mics around- has become very rare, always i play with amps, big sound, anywhere i play you have to use mics to resound the amp... and since a couple of years i really miss the instrument with his only sound out of it, using only the acoustic of the room, without any effects. I'm expecting to play more acoustic guitar in the future because my ears hurts since some years because of my love for big sound and energy and i assume that. But i think i have to stay creative with that constraint, and i guess i'll find it by coming back to the acoustic. I can say that duet was a good place to test that and i'm really glad about it. I also find some new ways of playing that instrument using my experience of electric guitar and effects pedals, with a clean new way of thinking the sound, the touch, the mood, the sustain and all that.
What does “Styles” mean to you (if it means anything?)?
Augustin Brousseloux
To me Styles are like walls to creation. We always want to file music in frames and boxes, and too many musicians try to fit those boxes. To be filed in a particular style, I find that rather devaluing, it makes you feel you really can't do more or else. I think people should stop talking about styles, because it doesn't mean much, even I use those terms daily but... Its for me more a question of sensations than styles really. For example If I say I like Jazz, it doesn't mean I like all what comes out from jazz. And anyway all the musicians that I really love always transcended all those styles frames....
How did you start and why did you choose guitar?
Jean-Christophe Renvoyer
I Started music with 14 and immediately got crazy about the guitar (seeing a TV show with Thin Lizzy and their two guitar players). My father had played a bit of violin in his youth and we had at home an organ and a flute but i wanted to play the guitar and nothing else. They quickly bought me one, a cheap Ibanez with two Humbuckers, but I had no amp.... I was plugin-in the house's Stereo to play “Smoke On The Water”... I kept this guitar for about 6 years until I could buy myself a better model. My journey has been pretty episodic, at first playing for fun mostly (today too but its different) but I was far from thinking I could become a musician some day. Then my studies slowed-down my musical work a lot (I got a technical certificate in Industrial Drawing). I was still playing next to that, in some rock and jazz-rock bands and after 7 years of office work I gave up all to only play music which is what I do since and with the same flame and enjoyment as when I started with 14.
What would you say your greatest non-musical influence is?
Manu Adnot
I'm in love with creators from a lot of different ways of expression. But i think the greatest one for me is litterature. Since some years i became a big reader and discovered some great authors. There's too many to tell about but i can say that i loved Joseph Boyden, Richard Powers, Marcel Proust, Yasunari Kawabata, Mo Yan, Isaac Asimov, Yukio Mishima---- too many! To tell u more about that, i gone to litterature school this year as a free auditor. I have to say also that my girlfriend is a great ceramist and i had the occasion to discover her universe through the years and loved it, it's really a different way of create and play with the space around- i saw beautiful things in.
How do you place yourself as a musician/artist through nowadays society?
Noël Akchoté
As today... as each day - another day, each year, etc. I have a general non-relation to verticality (or maybe to all levels where it clearly doesn't apply to be needed, like Top-5 and so on). I see a strong revival-nostalgia mainstream today amongst in fact rather people your age (not you but many) around, which I only see as a symptom. I'm not particularly a Ying/Yang adept at all but I never see things as Good Vs. Bad (rarely, maybe only with politicians... the no-hope at all people ? Not even true totally, anyway). So I like that moment a lot because it breaks in many ways, the world changes, the world has become at the same time a one global unit, but finally made of endless individuals, groups, moments, tastes, shares etc. The sense of History has I think changed a lot. It will be very difficult to globalize history in the future (though history is also a work of fiction mostly), its too many concomitant-parallel events constantly today that anyone can be aware of and follow real time. If you think of arts and music, I have no idea where it's all going but I sort of lost the need to know in profit of the permanent amazement of seeing it moving in real time. I'm very happy about those years in fact, but that probably has very little to do with outside world, but more with my definitely subjective step made into doing daily all I want really
Guitar Duets Series Noël Akchoté w. Charlie Rauh, Manu Adnot, Augustin Brousseloux, Jean-Christophe Renvoyer
1.- What do you expect from a collaborative work? What are you looking for sharing a musical space? What do you move from playing in duo? What do you like from a music teamwork? What's the gratification of a shared musical work?
Noël Akchoté
Those recordings are what we call Correspondence albums. In other words: I've asked each of the artists to record some music and send it to me, and then recorded over, but each as an original organic duet. Does this alter the collaborative aspects of it? Not at all for me. In terms of expectations, I think I don't have any other ones than the very simple fact of sharing and crossing approaches, practices, perspectives, ways, moments. Maybe like a picture of a given moment and time. Probably also that all this always takes me back to were I started, meaning that for long time I mostly played and practiced in duet with another guitar players (when I was 13-14 we all had routines, did our scales, harmony, sight reading exercises from the morning to noon and then called each others to see what opportunities were to meet and just play, mostly standards at that time). And often we went to gigs straight away, playing bars, hotels, restaurants in duets too, so that I kept a sort of home feeling about it.
Charlie Rauh: Electric Guitar. Noël Akchoté : Electric Guitar.
Charlie Rauh
One of the things I value most about a collaborative project is not knowing what to expect.Noël contacted me out of the blue and asked me to be part of this project, neither of us knowing much about each other. I am so grateful that he did! With these duets, since Noël and I were recording separately, I played brief improvisations and imagined another voice being present. What I did NOT do however is try to hear that voice. I wanted to play as if Noël was simultaneously playing with me, but at the same time not assume where he would be more supportive or more upfront. It was very difficult! However hearing what he added to the frameworks I started was extremely gratifying. The duo pieces truly sound conversational to me. Noël’s brilliant ability to listen, react, and lead with his playing is very apparent in bringing this about.
Manu Adnot : Acoustic & Electric Guitars. Noël Akchoté : Acoustic & Electric Guitars.
Manu Adnot
It's hard to talk about it without using common senses. I think duet sessions are kind of fragile events, it creates very intimate link between only two musicians which make our music takes a very responsible way. Meaning that when u're playing in a band, we can think in a way that responsability can be shared between different sections, but in duet project there's no way out. It's also the opportunity to come back to the real thing, as only your fingers/your body connected directly to the strings/to music. I love the mood from the last album's title from metal band Sepultura: “the Mediator between head and hands must be the heart”, it really reflects what musician i expect to be and i can say Noël really got that thing- it's an honor for me to play with him. But in this duet series, it's also something particular because we record home alone each other, so we have to make something happening all by yourself first of all, without the air blowing around, without the weight from his partner' sound. I think that one important direction to be a good musician is playing music that immediatly can be shared, with musicians, with the audience. This time it was a really good opportunity to create music with this constraint of distance and time- the fact that the other is recording in another day, in another place is very interesting because directly connected with my idea that Art is always a question of “Time” feeling, that it can be the only place where you can find another way to feel the “Time”-in a world which is directed by the time from commercials/tv/radio/internet- i love that---- i love to practice a different kind of Time.
Augustin Brousseloux : Electric Guitars. Noël Akchoté : Electric Guitar. Electric Bass, Programming.
Augustin Brousseloux
Its not my first duet recording and I must admit that each time its a total blast and each time a total different sensation. Each new duet is a new experience so far, and each time we need to try to renew ourselves but without giving up on what we are, how we play ... and that's the biggest part of the job. Once you're started all comes very naturally to me and its a real pleasure though. And once you recorded your own parts what's most exciting is to imagine what will the other play and do with it. What comes out is always surprising, sometimes less than others, but there's always a good part of surprise. With this particular duet I didn't expect that at all! And that's what I like so much with Noël, he always does something different, each release is surprising but you recognize him each time immediately. What matters most in such duets for me is that each musician gets enough place to be able to play that game.
Jean-Christophe Renvoyer : Electric Guitar. Noël Akchoté : Electric Guitar.
Jean-Christophe Renvoyer
First of all I'd like to thanks Noël again for this unique project and for his eye to recognize real guitar music passionates, this without even really meeting them often. without stopping at the styles questions, nor age differences, experiences or tastes - guitar music and curiosity is here the main and real link between each player. For me its been an incredible occasion to open up in fact. As we all come from different scenes and practices (but all improvising), this exchange and interplay with Noël, each keeping his own sound and approach, really brought something new to each I find. Personally I do a lot of jazz gigs (duos, trios, 4tet), mostly playing standards, which is an experience he has had as well (playing loads of bars and hotels in his early times) and even he went many other roads since, he never turned down that side of the work, which I guess is a clear link between us. I started later, coming from other jobs before, and to me such projects are very exciting and motivating today along with my own projects moving forward as well. He is for me probably what Philip Catherine, Tal Farlow, Christian Escoudé or even Derek Bailey have been for him! The other side of this project is for me related to internet and these new social networks, and what possibilities they bring and offer today. Although we're same age with Noël, he has had the chance to travel and meet a lot of people since earliest age, where others like me might have had to stay more local, but such projects precisely shows that we can share a lot wherever we live now. Even we all stay in a different part of the world (I live since my childhood in a small village in the west part of France), we could, grace to these new technologies, well play, share and create together now. I guess that meeting for real and playing next to each other would bring another experience but again this has been an incredible opening experience to me. As for playing in duet, its a regular setting for me, particularly the Guitar & Double-Bass one, but funnily I realized now that I barely never did play in duet with another guitarist, making this a sort of première with Noël even more gratifying.
2.- How do you hear the sound of other musician? How do you feel the sound of other musician? How do you sense the sound of another musician? How do you feel the lines of other musician to react with him? How do you give back a music sensation playing in a duo?
Charlie Rauh
I try to experience playing music with other musicians in every way that I feel I am lacking in personal interaction. When playing music, it seems to me that it is more possible to give, and be
given to, through interaction. The central intent behind playing music with other artists for me is to be individually foundational. I am interested in sensing what is played in a way that makes the other
player or players feel supported while simultaneously provoking them to move into new territory.
Manu Adnot
I think, as i said before, that u're music have to be shared anyway with musicians, with the audience (physically/not physically). In this particular situation i don't “feel” the sound of Noël because he's not here. But nevermind: i give elements, he gives elements. He follows or not, i follow or not. I think u don't have to care about leaving space to the other, the space can be anywhere, in the intentions, in the dynamics, in the expression. Noël is free to play as he want and so do i. That kind of play -leaving the space- makes already a new constraint, i don't want to think as “solo”/”ure turn”. Doing this project, without any pressure/label/money (even if it's our work too, being a musician) is a important opportunity to create music which is not a posture. The last time i felt that was with my friend Cédric Thimon in our project “Détruire tous les humains” (“Destroy all humans”).
Augustin Brousseloux : Electric Guitar. Noël Akchoté : Electric Guitar.
I'm very careful to what the other plays, in a duet, and whether recorded at same time or not its the same. I totally dive in the other's playing and things become easier that way for me, it all comes naturally then. In that particular duet, it wasn't the case because I send my first takes to Noël, but when he sent me the mix with his parts I again listened to it very carefully.
Its very interesting to listen to a guitar player improvising on one of your improvisations, how he hears and feels, reacts and respond to what you first played. And when its done so brilliantly with two musicians totally tuned together, its an incredible experience.
Jean-Christophe Renvoyer
Listening to a musician, his sound, his inner voice is a primary element to me. He may be strong or more intimate, violent or whispering... all can take my whole attention if one really is incarnated. I'm also very attracted to the rhythmical aspect, the drive of a musician: guys can have all the harmonic and theoretical background, if his rhythmical articulation isn't there, it won't work for me. Of course soon will come in my scope the phrasing and harmonic aspect too, but to name just two, when I first heard Chet and Dolphy, it wasn't their choice of not but their sound, voice and phrasing that really got me. To go back to our duet, paying with someone new will certainly affect your own playing, bringing new ideas or perspectives, but even this happened, I don't see it radically changes your own phrasing and articulation, its more about a new context, new pictures, than you suddenly changing totally. It of course varies with people, but I see with others, their playing in fact evolves rather slowly, its rather a color question to me. Noël would better answer this aspect but as I can imagine he also had to adapt to each of us, probably on the spot as he heard it, with each of us playing, on those first recordings we sent him. I know he didn't listen to each complete takes before recording his own and i'm pretty impressed how he managed to find himself through each of us. When he asked me to collaborate this project and series I didn't want to think too much before recording my parts, I know see I probably sent him my more usual jazz side, with changes and lines. But the final result is very different from what I would have myself recorded as a second part, though it really works together I find. Someone left a comment I quite like on a streaming post : "different roads flowin' so smoothly".
Noël Akchoté
I do listen to the other of course but my feeling is that in such contexts the presence of the other happens another level mostly. The fact (or paradox one may say), that the other's part is pre-recorded (although I don't listen much to their part before recoding really, on purpose) kinds of disappears totally when I start mine. What comes first is the room, the place, their timing. Each of the players had a very different place they recorded from, maybe that room-place tells at first the most to me. Its like I started to see, feel them in their own context, daily room and somewhere more intimately than if we had been recording as a real duet in a same place or spot. We might have “dressed” (put forms?), things more if we did do it as a classic duet. Its from those elements, that particular room-pace that each's playing starts to open and talk to me.
3.- How do you interact in one collaboration? How have you interacted in this collaboration? How's the musical dialogue in this collaboration?
Charlie Rauh
In a collaborative setting I try to interact on a side by side level. I feel the interaction of making music with people is drastically changed when it begins with the establishment of : “I am playing with you, not at you”. I definitely feel Noël takes this approach. This project is so interesting because I recorded improvisations and sent them to him, he had total freedom to play over a pre recorded track!
So many musicians would use this opportunity as making the already recorded part a “jam track” and just solo over it. From what I knew of Noël, I did not ever expect this from him - but I was blown away to hear that what he added truly sounded as if we had recorded at the same time, with as much sensitivity and listening as one could apply.
Manu Adnot
For me i want to be in a comfortable situation. I mean that i can speak freely, play freely, and feel a good vibe from the other. I really liked this collaboration with Noël because it was very simple in fact: we record, we send directly the music online, i like that. And even if i respect the great musician he is and all, i never felt this “heritage”, i mean that we played music in 2014 and that's all, i never felt any weight- and that kind of experience is precious for me.
Augustin Brousseloux
Before recording I often play a few second or minutes just to see which track to explore, but without the smallest idea of what I will play. I take it as it comes, and all comes naturally, once again. The most important side for me is the intensity – if I'm not totally inside what I play, I don't get any pleasure from it, and i'm pretty sure it'll fail. But if i'm totally in it, not thinking about anything else around anymore, than I can feel I will certainly like the result. In a duet, and this one particularly, I've tried to understand what could fit, in order to leave the right place to the other musician for him to reply to what I proposed. Listening to this album I really feel our two approaches melted in their own differences, and therefore shows a real continuity.
Jean-Christophe Renvoyer
He didn't ask us anything special nor particular but to provide 6 tracks with a total freedom. When I started to record the only element I had was the title on the cover “Jazz Album” (openly an eye-blink to my actual gigs), but I think he is more able to react to what we proposed him than I might have been if he would have sent me the first takes. On my side as I listened quite some of his latest releases I could have had the tendency to follow him on that line, but I've let things come as they were, letting the stylistic aspect aside. The only question that came to me was the one of the instrument, playing my Gibson ES-175, thinking also that others would go a different way, thinking of the whole series balance. I knew before of Manu that I've heard with “Aeris” and I expected him to play with lots of distortions, and I was totally suprised to hear him fully acoustic, and amazingly well! I can't speak for Manu but I guess he had selected his acoustic the same way I did my ES-175. Anyway, when I started to record I really had no idea how the whole project would evolve, nor how it would look like.
Noël Akchoté
Well now more concretely each player has a unique and particular sense
of using and playing with the space (the space and his own space here). A unique way to pickup and melt musical elements such as Phrasing, Timing, Harmony, Tensions & Reliefs... a Musical Dramaturgy, I guess we could say. And for me, passed all the previous points I underlined above, when I get to this final moment of pressing the Rec. Button, its only their musical discourse that activates me. I try not to think much (generally I mean), but find our pitch, or rather tune myself to the other. In some cases I go through few false starts of the very first piece (a minute or so into it, leaving all the other material unplayed yet), until I feel closer, or “tuned”.
4.- What's your interpretation of the music results? Give me ten words about the music results? Is there any surprise in the music result? Where's the peculiar emotion in a sound born in a musical collaboration? How's the company feeling in this recording?
Charlie Rauh
Upon hearing the results of our collaboration, I found themusic to be very content. I listen, and I hear deliberate communication. I saved the recordings on my computer that I sent Noël, so that I could compare to the completed versions with his parts. When I did this, I heard my voice - my solitary thoughts. These thoughts are complete, they have their own universe and finite existence. However when Noël added his voice to the thoughts they became multi dimensional. No longer were they my thoughts alone, but half of a conversation that exposed the strengths, frailty, doubts, and triumphs in all points made. I believe this occurred mutually. It is the same feeling that happens when perhaps you think you have someone figured out, how they relate, communicate, etc. Yet when this
person is interacted with in conversation their identity is magnified.
Not changed, but visible in ways that make you reconsider your confidence in the understanding you believe you have of them. In 10 words I would say : room, identity, trust, vulnerability, courage, fun,
enlightening, space, voice, needed
Manu Adnot
Even if i already listened -and loved- to the Arthur Narcy/Noël duet and that my friend Arthur told me about it, when i received the final mix i was at first disapointed because i had listen to my tracks some times before sending them to bring some gain to the sound, and so first i really felt the distance of the recording process. But after some listenings i felt in love particularly with the first and the last track. I accept the defaults in improvised music- in fact we can say that they don't exist, that it's only expression, but i mean i accept the research, it's the real life, nothing's perfect, and in this duet when something's going on in the interaction/music it's going more far away than anything else- i'm in love with that. And i found that Noël plays with heart- it's beautiful, his sound is unique, i like identity in music and Noël got it. I also think that in improvised music we immediatly have to go away, to already think about the next project instead of keep listening to his last album. We made it- let's do something else. But i have to say i'm very proud of this recording- and also the visual Noël made- for me it's inspired by Japanese author Yasunari Kawabata and his book “Snow Country” that i was reading at that time.
Ha, ten words:
Japon/rien/créer/Ambre/?/Littérature/Moi/l'Espace/le Coeur/le Rythme
Augustin Brousseloux
I see this duet as a dialog, where notes are like words that forms phrases and verses, then paragraphs to become a poem. A poem where each leaves or creates the space for the other to chant his own poetry. To improvise his own poetry and be lifted by his guitar and own music. That's how I see it. The result is always surprising when you don't know what will come and appear in the next moment. But this duet is a “surprising-surprise”, in that sense that before starting I really could not expect this at all – and what came totally surpasses all my expectations. In 10 words: Share, Exchange, surprise, pleasure, dialog, poetry, surreal, openness, beginnings, history....
Jean-Christophe Renvoyer
What comes first to mind when listening to the project its how easily Noël does place himself, his sounds and approach, a wide range of ideas.... looking at how different first takes we each send him, I seen now the coherence of the whole, and how these four EP could very well stand as an album in itself in fact. This project shows well how intention in music primes to styles. Personally I also discovered awesome musicians that I had never heard of before! Again thanks to Noël for this incredible experience, and a huge hug to all – ten words? Play, again, project, music, sound, rhythm, passion, life, future, cheers!
Noël Akchoté
I would first of all talk of a Process result, like before and after you first met someone and had a nice chat with. Found what you share, what you differ with, what you could imagine or want to do together, also how each does work, how he (she) look and care for his own future in music (from projects to desires to explore further this or that area, you know guitarists, its always some gear to try, some scales to swallow, some players you love so much etc). The main result of these duets is that I really Feel I know much more of each of them, shared a unique and deeper moment inside their own playing and world.
To me this as a gesture is probably most important, it has even a sort of humanistic background, a sort of “let's get together, hands in hands” side. I've always felt as a child and member of a much wider guitar players family tree.
So that its Maybe a bit like a huge family lunch with more cousins and brothers, more members to get to know, and I care for all of them. Ten words... hum : Matter, Practice, Share, Instrumental, Confrontation (in the open sense, not in the conflictual one), Shape, Rhythm, Sound, 2014, In Progress, Tomorrow, Today, Yesterday.
5.- Drop a question for your partenaire. Make a question to your partner
Did you ever play more straight Jazz Gigs (Bebop, Swing, Straight Ahead...)?
Manu Adnot
No, and there are some reasons:
When i was at music school, i was looking at nowadays music instead of standards culture. I got a problem with the standards, i can't feel them, i don't found something to do in it, and i think that they are the most of the time very bad played. I'm very disapointed when i'm listening to a new musician with great compositions, playing a standard between them. I don't understand why they have to do that. I know there is a great history through them and i learned that at school, from Broadway and all that, but it's really not my culture, that's all. I got a bad experience too at the end of my studies with my diploma so i think i'm a little bit angry about that. I never named myself as a jazz musician, i only had to go to a music school where i could learn things i didn't know. I don't care about only jazz history, i'm interessed in music history, Art history. And also i didn't like the “old” sound of the electric guitar in jazz- i think it's too flat for me- i liked the sustain, the weight and didn't found it there at that time. I think too that we pass next to some musics that -i think- are the jazz of today- if we have to absolutely use that name “jazz” which for me, nowadays and as other terms (world music- argh...) is only a word used to put the discs in the shops. Anyway. I can say that i'm in love with Coltrane of course and lot of musicians as Henry Threadgill for exemple that i discovered at that time, but i'm interessed in expression in Art and it concerns as litterature, visuals arts, video games and cinema as music. ... OK, i have to say that i discovered the Allan Holdsworth's (i'm a big big fan) album “Gone too soon” where he plays only standards and really liked it!
Looking back at you guitar and musical career, do you see your work as a permanent evolution towards new approaches or rather a cyclic movement?
Noël Akchoté
Hum... good question. Well clearly as a “Return to”. But this said it could well sound pretty ambiguous or even deep fried nostalgia, and this is everything but the case. What happens is that I started very early and got to meet incredibly strong musicians with 13-14, I mean people like Tal Farlow, Philip Catherine, Coryell or Jim Hall, Abercrombie etc and it set since first age a very high level on me. For about 20 years at least I wanted nothing else but to continue playing but with that permanent feeling that there were little chances I come next to any of these people ever. Today (say since 10 years maybe), I forgot about that question (mostly, not totally but), so my all move is a circle clearly and a return to that particular debut moment. As a sort of my own intimate judgement, level or grade. Let's say that's where I challenge myself, to all these amazing players I still care a lot for and learn constantly from, but not having too much anymore the question of “how to sound your own”.
Why do You Have CC Pickups on your Guitar (How that came to you as a desire to play these, And do they Refer to Something Someone?
Charlie Rauh
I Love the single coil sound and prefer a two pickup arrangement (like a tele) I chose CC pickups because I wanted an airy but full tone from the guitar that I could use as a starting point to build the sound I get from my hands. I am also a huge admirer of Charlie Christian himself who made the
style of pickups famous, so I suppose you could say there is a bit of a homage there!. I have been listening to these players nonstop for quite some time : Mary Halvorson, Don Peris, Glenn Campbell, Wolfgang Muthspiel, and Dominic Miller
Why did you choose to play a large part on Nylon Strings Guitar?
Manu Adnot
Because i played only acoustic nylon guitar when i started at the age of 8 to the age of 20/21. And also that the fact of playing guitar only acoustic -without any mics around- has become very rare, always i play with amps, big sound, anywhere i play you have to use mics to resound the amp... and since a couple of years i really miss the instrument with his only sound out of it, using only the acoustic of the room, without any effects. I'm expecting to play more acoustic guitar in the future because my ears hurts since some years because of my love for big sound and energy and i assume that. But i think i have to stay creative with that constraint, and i guess i'll find it by coming back to the acoustic. I can say that duet was a good place to test that and i'm really glad about it. I also find some new ways of playing that instrument using my experience of electric guitar and effects pedals, with a clean new way of thinking the sound, the touch, the mood, the sustain and all that.
What does “Styles” mean to you (if it means anything?)?
Augustin Brousseloux
To me Styles are like walls to creation. We always want to file music in frames and boxes, and too many musicians try to fit those boxes. To be filed in a particular style, I find that rather devaluing, it makes you feel you really can't do more or else. I think people should stop talking about styles, because it doesn't mean much, even I use those terms daily but... Its for me more a question of sensations than styles really. For example If I say I like Jazz, it doesn't mean I like all what comes out from jazz. And anyway all the musicians that I really love always transcended all those styles frames....
How did you start and why did you choose guitar?
Jean-Christophe Renvoyer
I Started music with 14 and immediately got crazy about the guitar (seeing a TV show with Thin Lizzy and their two guitar players). My father had played a bit of violin in his youth and we had at home an organ and a flute but i wanted to play the guitar and nothing else. They quickly bought me one, a cheap Ibanez with two Humbuckers, but I had no amp.... I was plugin-in the house's Stereo to play “Smoke On The Water”... I kept this guitar for about 6 years until I could buy myself a better model. My journey has been pretty episodic, at first playing for fun mostly (today too but its different) but I was far from thinking I could become a musician some day. Then my studies slowed-down my musical work a lot (I got a technical certificate in Industrial Drawing). I was still playing next to that, in some rock and jazz-rock bands and after 7 years of office work I gave up all to only play music which is what I do since and with the same flame and enjoyment as when I started with 14.
What would you say your greatest non-musical influence is?
Manu Adnot
I'm in love with creators from a lot of different ways of expression. But i think the greatest one for me is litterature. Since some years i became a big reader and discovered some great authors. There's too many to tell about but i can say that i loved Joseph Boyden, Richard Powers, Marcel Proust, Yasunari Kawabata, Mo Yan, Isaac Asimov, Yukio Mishima---- too many! To tell u more about that, i gone to litterature school this year as a free auditor. I have to say also that my girlfriend is a great ceramist and i had the occasion to discover her universe through the years and loved it, it's really a different way of create and play with the space around- i saw beautiful things in.
How do you place yourself as a musician/artist through nowadays society?
Noël Akchoté
As today... as each day - another day, each year, etc. I have a general non-relation to verticality (or maybe to all levels where it clearly doesn't apply to be needed, like Top-5 and so on). I see a strong revival-nostalgia mainstream today amongst in fact rather people your age (not you but many) around, which I only see as a symptom. I'm not particularly a Ying/Yang adept at all but I never see things as Good Vs. Bad (rarely, maybe only with politicians... the no-hope at all people ? Not even true totally, anyway). So I like that moment a lot because it breaks in many ways, the world changes, the world has become at the same time a one global unit, but finally made of endless individuals, groups, moments, tastes, shares etc. The sense of History has I think changed a lot. It will be very difficult to globalize history in the future (though history is also a work of fiction mostly), its too many concomitant-parallel events constantly today that anyone can be aware of and follow real time. If you think of arts and music, I have no idea where it's all going but I sort of lost the need to know in profit of the permanent amazement of seeing it moving in real time. I'm very happy about those years in fact, but that probably has very little to do with outside world, but more with my definitely subjective step made into doing daily all I want really
On Prepared Guitar
Jean-Christophe Renvoyer: soon
