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 Sound UbuWeb |
Julien Mérieau Selections from the Radio Mulot Archive
Infos & technical 01 Julien Mérieau - Mallarmé - Cantique de Saint Jean Miniature made for Radio Mulot, halfways between grotesque and hommage, parody and suspense. The idea was to make poetry more real passing the text through body and flesh, voice at the front. Either, to mentally integrate some spectra or ghost, in the idea of 19 th century spiritualism. The track was made on a two tracks mastering software (Sony Sound Forge 6.0) and a microphone Shure SM57. Using a two track recorder leads to work the song with some "one shot" system, as for exemple when the voice is added to the loop melody, you cannot reverse the process. I used Sound Forge for years to avoid loosing myslef into infinite possibilities that give any other more acurate multitrack : I just wanted a simple "recorder". About the loop melody, strangely it was made with the embeded Sound Forge keyboard, wich is given just as a tool for minor jobs. No effects was used in this track, wich track was made as "for fun" or like an experiment. Credits : Computer, voice : J.Mérieau / Lyrics : Stéphane Mallarmé, Cantique de Saint Jean. 02 Quartz Locked (Radio Mulot) - Trains Interlock 2015 (5:00) This track is the opening B face of a vinyle commisioned by the french label Warm. It is a massive recycling process of chunks from any kind , any origin : unfinished instrumentals, private recordings, stolen samples etc. As short exemples, one can find : a high speed train in Laval, France, a bottle exploding on a birthday party, a young philosopher testing microphones, a phone annoncement after the September 11th 2001, Blaise Pascal Mérinsot and his daughter, a tape extract from stenography ensignement by correspondence. Shortened technical infos : final mix on Ableton Live, mastering by Mathias Delplanque. Credits : guitar : Christophe Langlais. Voices : B.P Mérinsot, Christophe Mozon, Matthieu Fournier, Guillaume Colussi, Marion Pacheteau. Programming, guitar, piano, electronics, mixing : J.Mérieau. 03 Julien Mérieau - Radio Mulot - Synthèse BUBU (1:36) Miniature made for Radio Mulot, as what we call an "anti-jingle", translation : "uncommercial break". The word Bubu is also a reference to the god of the Simplists, a pre surrealistic group of young poets, based in Reims, France, Roger Gilbert Lecomte and René Daumal, among others. Bubu is either probably saying something about alcool and in this piece, about the way alcool can dissolve the brain, the speech or the voice itself. Technicals : track made using words /letters /spaces to trigger tones and modulations onto a very small vocal synthesis tool, an old school standalone software named "Say It !", from Analog X, back in Windows 98. Credits : text, software : J.Mérieau. Julien Mérieau - Notes Célestes, 1992 (1:07) Miniature made aside from the progressive french rock band Evidence, sample for as a side project or either intermede track for the live gigs. Technicals : composed and played on a circuit bended Realistic Concertmate 500 Sampling Keyboard (Casio SK-1 Clone.) directly into a common cassette deck for the final taping. The circuit bending consisted mainly in the addition of two mono cynch jacks, routed from the inner core. Those outputs provided extremely high tones, from the same notes being played. Take advice that back in 1991 the circuit bending was not at all a common process - not sure even the word existed at the time - : an idea I had from personal research in experimental electronics, thanks to the Taverny's Radio Club and my grand father too, involved in the military industry. Credits : Keyboard, Circuit Bending : J.Mérieau. 05 Julien Mérieau - Piano Noir (demo) (6:58) The idea on this track was to melt industrial music' style with some parody of classical piano virtuose. Yet unfinished, this song involved many time and hardware, including a brand new black Yamaha"piano droit" and a Tascam 38 Reel to Reel tape recorder, bought with an entire wage but never used at the end, when personal comptuers just appeared at the same time. Demo recorded on a four tracks Fostex cassette machine, this track is still waiting for being entirely reshaped, starting with the piano parts. Technicals : Piano Yamaha, percussion on cushion, keyboard Concertmate 500, mixed on four tracks Fostex cassette machine. Credits : piano, guitar, keyboard, percussions, treatments : J.Mérieau. 06 Julien Mérieau - Mallarmé - Cantique de Saint Jean, 2016 (3:30) Cover from the 2001 version, except the loop melody was emulate to stereo (fake stereo) and the voice performance remade. Technical : Ableton Live, Beyer microphone, external soundcard. Credits : Computer, voice : J.Mérieau / Lyrics : Stéphane Mallarmé, Cantique de Saint Jean. Biopic As a photographer, Julien Mérieau worked for 25 years on slide projections, forming a concept of « Still Movie ». He claims using no defined creative line but instead, mainly “framing sentiments”, difficult to translate from the pictures. Besides the most demanding work upon the “style” in itself and living for itself, in a kind of demiurgic approach he tries to offer what he calls “organic photographs” : composed just as living bodies, stand-alone systems, or either, “photographs of the unseen”, so that the “subject” of the pictures is far beyond from what they may propose as possibilities or intentions, and don’t want to firmly enclose. In 1997, he has set up a pirate radio station named as Radio Mulot / France Museau, active in France since now. The project can be described both as a deviant history of music and a vector of sound manipulations and live experiences, inspired from Dadaism, futurism, Situationism and of course Industrial Music but either as a practice of reverse engineering ideology and deconstructive approach of the radio media. The interest for visual arts is crucial, the transmitter being used just “as a pencil”. The idea is to approach “music” as a dissolving area that reaches and communicate with all kind of artworks in visual arts, past and present, the use of internet and information technology, on both sides, having change many things in the various forms of “music” and the way to approach it in terms of sound programming. UbuWeb Sound | UbuWeb |