New Release on The Bridge Sessions!

The Bridge is elated to announce the release of the second album of the label The Bridge Sessions.

THE SYNC [THE BRIDGE #5]

Sylvaine Hélary — flutes, effects, voice
Fred Lonberg-Holm — cello, effects
Eve Risser — piano, prepared piano
Mike Reed — drums

This album was recorded in October, 2014, at La Carré Bleu, Poitiers.

This album is now available as a CD or digital download on our Bandcamp page: https://thebridgesessions.bandcamp.com/album/the-sync

Earth-shattering. Shattering, mostly. For the kind of “novelty” that is about to be put on trial and to practice by Sylvaine Hélary, Eve Risser, Fred Lonberg-Holm and Mike Reed also savors erosion, the action of time, of the sun, of the rain, of the wind, and of inner life that leaves a mark on music, that shapes it or gnaws it. Novelty perhaps, and so be it, in that we could introduce these four musicians through all the genres they are able to approach and overrun. Because, on the French and American scenes, they have performed, on the French and American scenes, with the convulsive Joe McPhee, with the gargantuan Surnatural Orchestra, with the astonishing Roscoe Mitchell, with the mysterious trio En Corps (alongside Benjamin Duboc and Edward Perraud). When it comes to genres, they have the coat with voice to match, from today’s jazz to tomorrow’s tunes, by way of noise and improvised music – just as if improvisation, rather than a genre, weren’t precisely the great vehicle that allows crossing from one universe to the next, with sheer freedom, thoughtfully or thoughtlessly. While their association of timbres would almost incite to take the easy road with the promise of muted chamber music, let us not forget that their makers are spaced-out enough that they are fond of role reversals and have the desire to venture through the looking glass. Hélary, Risser, Lonberg-Holm, and Reed all know how to make radiance encroach upon entanglement, and spasm upon starkness. Her flute wears a blood-red evening gown; it’s the diaphanous devil itself. That her piano is cloudy, or spiky, arched on its legs or its spinwheel tip. That his cello, cactus- or skeleton-like, is a stockpile of explosives that will or will not explode, that has nevertheless become a master at lauching torpedoes. That his drumkit is in free time, is as sober as it is constructive, ideally bowing and bending rhythms to release them back to volatility. It is at the intersection, at the carousel of these characters, on this strange carnival ride, that lies their music. Henri Michaux, in “Dessiner l’écoulement du temps”, had already described their method: “One line, or two or three, meeting others here and there, bushing here, hugging there, battling further down, rolling in a ball.

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