Dérive was commissioned by La Muse En Circuit as the prize in the Concours Luc Ferrari.
Thanks to everyone at La Muse En Circuit!
Dérive is a stereo acousmatic work, started at the studios of La Muse En Circuit and finished in the composer’s own studio. The piece was premiered at the Archipel Festival, Geneva, March 22nd 2013.
I crisscrossed the city of Paris in search of sounds… My itinerary was built from walks, all having as their point of departure the official centre of Paris, the point 48.8534°N 2.3488°E on the square in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral.
I don’t wish to explain too much about this piece: instead, I prefer for the listener to be led through the work by their ear and imagination, much as I was led around the streets of Paris. Dérive seeks to explore the connections between environments… But Dérive is not only a documentary work: above all, it is poetic and mythological, a reading of the city at the present time, an exploration of the sounds, spaces, histories and cultures that shape Paris.
I walked over 100 kilometers in order to gather the materials for Dérive. I walked the full length of both banks of the Seine within the boundary of Boulevard Périphérique, recording the sounds of boats, gulls, the constant fluctuations of the river, it’s voice rushing and changing, reverberating in tunnels and under bridges, merging with the sounds of traffic in the open air. I recorded the tombs of the Panthéon, the streets of Montmartre, the ambience and beautifully melancholic songs of Sacré-Couer, Notre Dame and its surrounding areas; the creaking floorboards of the house of Gustave Moreau, the city sounds from the top of the Eiffel Tower, the tunnels of the Metro, dozens of street performers, office workers playing ping-pong during lunch breaks, children playing in Place des Vosges and…
At the conclusion of this work, it seems to me that Paris is a city of flow and friction, of movement and interruption. But perhaps more than this, it is a place of saturation and juxtaposition. I could walk 100 kilometers more, following the flow and haltering rhythms of the city, in silent reverie.