Mouvances - Métaphores

* originally posted on November 21, 2006

Francis Dhomont - Cycle de l'errance (Mouvances - Métaphores 1)

Mouvances~Métaphores was first released in 1991, but has long been out of stock. empreintes DIGITALes / DIFFUSION i MéDIA has released a second edition of this double-CD set. Completed between 1982 and 1989, this work contains two large cycles, Cycle de l’errance and Les dérives du signe. The new edition includes some remixing and a complete repackaging; the discs are now sold separately rather than together, and the original booklet, which ran to over 200 pages, has been divided between the two, with the lengthy, but by now outdated, tribute celebrating Francis Dhomont’s 65th birthday relegated to the status of collector’s item.Cycle de l’errance [Cycle of Wanderings] evokes in a highly poetic way the idea of departure, of travel — real or imagined — and the existential sadness associated with it. Three works make up this cycle: Points de fuite (Vanishing Points), 1981 … Mourir un peu (… dying a little), 1984; and Espace/Escape (a bilingual anagram, “espace” meaning “space”), 1989. Here, Mr Dhomont was in part inspired by his own experiences, as witnessed by his program note: 'wandering both in its proper and figurative meanings — movement, change, mobility, roving dreams upheaval, and revivals—all weave the very material of my life." (Stéphane Roy, Computer Music Journal)

Tracklisting:

1. Points de Fuite {12:29}

2. ... Mourir un Peu (movement 1: Marime) {2:06}

3. ... Mourir un Peu (movement 2: Cartographi liminaire) {3:38}

4. ... Mourir un Peu (movement 3: Un certain embarquement) {5:30}

5. ... Mourir un Peu (movement 4: Theme de la fuite) {9:00}

6. ... Mourir un Peu (movement 5: Transfert I) {6:31}

7. ... Mourir un Peu (movement 6: En abime) {5:13}

8. ... Mourir un Peu (movement 7: Transfert II) {4:15}

9. ... Mourir un Peu (movement 8: Palimpseste) {3:28}

10. ... Mourir un Peu (movement 9: Il ritorno) {5:15}

11. Espace/Escape {19:23}

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Francis Dhomont - Les dérives du signe (Mouvances - Métaphores 2)

The other cycle, Les dérives du signe [The Drift of the Sign], includes four works: Novars, 1989; Chiaroscuro, 1987; Météores (Meteors), 1989; and Signé Dionysos (Signed Dionysus), 1986, rev. 1991. These pieces make subtle play on the ambiguity generated by shifts in meaning. We find here misappropriations of pre-existing musical sources in Novars and Chiaroscuro, the synaesthetic transfer of the sensations of speed and kinetic energy in the morphological shapes of the sound materials in Météores and the clouding of the paths that lead from natural sounds to novel, artificial sounds in Signé Dionysos. (Stéphane Roy, Computer Music Journal)

Tracklisting:

1. Novars {19:13}

2. Chiaroscuro {17:36}

3. Météores {12:49}

4. Signé Dionysos {28:21}

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