Jesse al arco

MM liner notes

Musique mécanique is the result of two different researches I been pursuing during the last few years.
First , while working on some “drone” based tracks for another project, I got tired of the usual synth sustained low note as a drone, and all the tweaking, processing and morphing required to give some life to those dull plastic twangs. Being a bassist, it was a natural alternative to pick up my upright bass and try some bowed sustained notes. How easier was to add life to that! Not just by means of dynamics and playing techniques, but also manipulating and processing that acoustic “live” sound. So I started building some basic tracks that I called “organic drones”, it was just drones performed in acoustic instruments and even objects, noises and sounds, then processing and morphing those mixed tracks to achieve an original, unreal yet warm and lively sound. Those organic drones started to get more and more complex and weird as I kept pushing the limits of my postulate: “Just noises produced by mechanical means”.
In the bonus CD of the Special Edition of Musique Mécanique you’ll find the very first track I recorded for this project using these concept: “Recitativo”, its one of my complex organic drones going on for more than 8 minutes, mutating and evolving as I just solo on top of it my with my electric guitar. Some other tracks using these drone technique made it to the final cut of Musique Mécanique, most notably “Metallic Drone” and “Drones Mécanique” and “Solstice”, but glimpses of this proceedings impregnated the whole project in the backgrounds.
Then I started a second research, exploring the possibilities (and fun) of playing around with delays and echoes. The random counterpoints, brilliant accidents and unexpected harmonies provided by these delayed signals (usually with particularly high decay/feedback times) proved to be quite addictive, and it took the best part of the album, its bonus tracks and extended to many other projects like “lärmkunst”. The bonus CD includes some compositions I recorded for other projects using the very same “Delays Mécaniques” concept.
The culmination of these echo-drenched research and the idea of using delays as a composition technique, ended up in a collection called “Auto-Counterpoints”, but that’ll be a different project, as those tracks are more focused, rigorously planned, standard compositions. Musique Mécanique shows the research process, its unexpected results and delightful accidents. In a way this is the ultimate ”experimental” album for me: a recording of my experimentations with sound and composition, a pure “research” project, were I found the charm of starting a track without knowing exactly were it would lead me, without any plot or plan. Then, in post production the composition process continued, giving these recordings a more coherent, achieved structure and sound.
Hopefully some of you will appreciate the results of this process that took 2 years of passionate work. Thanks for making it happen, thanks for listening.
Love:

dd, Paris October 2010