French post-classical composer Sylvain Chauveau is readying the release of his Life Without Machines LP for release on April 17th via the Japanese label flau. Using Barnett Newman’s masterwork painting series Stations of the Cross: Lema Sabachthani as a visual score, Chauveau echos that stark collection of fourteen black and white paintings with an equal number of essentialized compositions for piano and electronics.
Newman’s Station paintings are so large in scale that they cannot be viewed all at once. Similarly, the composer takes inspiration from the stone garden of Ryoanji in Kyoto where there are fifteen rock formations, but from any point of view, one can only see a maximum of fourteen at the same time. Likewise, Life Without Machines is actually comprised of fifteen pieces, but one track is “hidden” and unlisted.
Chauveau’s compositions are performed by the French pianist Melaine Dalibert. Emphasizing the moment and act of listening through a slowed approach, each short piece on the record shines with a stunningly emotive clarity–even as the collection’s title points to a more ominous imperative. Life Without Machines asks us to consider just that. There is not an aspect of our material lives not touched by technology and our reliance on machines has become total. But Chauveau asks what if, out of economic or ecological necessity, whether it be our chosen path or the result of a catastrophe, humans had to exist without them…
Below you can watch a video for the piece “e,” Life Without Machines‘ fifth track. The visuals were created by Kevin Matagne. Seeming to also take inspiration from Newman’s Station paintings, the video is monochromatic and minimal. Additionally, like the fourteen paintings which involve a recurring motif of two offset vertical bands on a blank canvas, Matagne interplays white lines on a black screen. Combined with a musical score capable of stopping you in its tracks, this mesmerizing video slows you down so that you can more clearly perceive without all that usual mental clutter getting in the way.
tracklist:1 o
2 t s
3 or
4 d
5 e
6 w
7 bl
8 q
9 u
10 nd
11 r
12 (fa
13 l
14 en
