Après son album Switch the letters salué en 2010 par la critique pour son songwriting ciselé et délicat, Lunt réapparu en 2014 avec un album à l’exact opposé, à savoir composé de la partie expérimentale de son travail.
Water belongs to the night présente la facette la plus sombre de son univers musical. Après ses précédents albums Broken words and lost answers et Fragments of free, il s’agit bien là de son album le plus abouti, basé sur des loops, drones et glitches, le tout uniquement composé à la guitare électrique, sans laptop, avec comme seule guide l’improvisation.
L’atmosphère pourra rappeler parfois celle des travaux de Fred Frith, des travaux solo instrumentaux de Lee Ranaldo, ou le raffinement des débuts de Rafael Toral (Wave Field, Violence of discovery calm of acceptance).
Ce disque fut également la première référence pressée au format CD de la nouvelle subdivision expérimentale The Tremens Archives initiée par Lunt en 2011 (après la série Hitomi Recordings lors de la décennie précédente), et contient à l’intérieur du disques toutes les informations sur celle-ci, notamment les autres références disponibles et son éthique de recherche musicale.
Finalement, Water belongs to the night se révèle plus fluide qu’obtu et d’une facilité d’écoute toute relative. On n’oserait dire qu’il est agréable d’écoute, de peur de froisser son auteur. Benzine
One could say Lunt explores a wider variety of approaches here, from the very ambient to the very noisy, from the sustaining to the more chaotic, chopped up style…Great release! Vital Weekly #934
His music is strange but never unlistenable. The songs are unique but they never regress into a mindless drone. And the compositions are inventive without sounding pretentious. BabySue
Lunt cooks up his music as a delicate chef, whipping opulent feedback as he dresses piercing frequencies upon it, and powders the construction with reverberating notes upon notes, echoing as a multitude as they’re already gone, while you’re still in the room. SoundProjector
The nine tracks are seamlessly fused in 49 minutes, the atmospheres varying from delicately crystalline to menacingly misshapen…a totally respectable release enriched by a beautiful cover… The Squid’s ear
A piece like “Stumbling Crystal” is Frithian, true, with it’s spiky, ice shards delicately arrayed, but it’s so inherently attractive that I forced myself out of an “influential” mode of appraisal and just enjoyed it…If that branch of guitarists appeals to you (as it does me), you’ll find this an enjoyable listen Just Outside
Il existe deux Gilles Deles. Celui qui officie, sous son nom, comme ingénieur du son pour de nombreux artistes (citons Angil, Broadway) et celui qui sort, sous le nom de Lunt, sa propre musique. Dans l’absolu, il existe aussi deux Lunt, celui qui sort Switch the Letters, dans un format rock, et celui nettement plus expérimental. Water belongs to the night appartient à cette deuxième catégorie et sort justement sur Tremens Archive, la division dédiée aux musiques improvisées du label We are Unique Records. Aucun laptop n’a été maltraité ici, ni même utilisé d’ailleurs. A l’instar d’un Lee Ranaldo, Lunt explore toutes les possibilités offertes par sa guitare et ses pédales d’effet : des boucles, des drônes, des bruitages mais aussi des arpèges lumineux qui enrichissent une musique ambiant impressionniste et nocturne. Finalement, Water belongs to the night se révèle plus fluide qu’obtu et d’une facilité d’écoute toute relative. On n’oserait dire qu’il est agréable d’écoute, de peur de froisser son auteur. (3.5) Denis Zorgniotti
VITAAL WEEKLY #934
It’s been a long, very long time since I last heard Lunt. Back in Vital Weekly 422 I reviewed ‘Broken Words And Lost Answers’, and in 480 it was the turn to ‘Fragments Of Free Volume 1’. That is indeed some time ago, and I have no idea what he has been up to in between, but these days he runs (also) a record label We Are Unique! Records and the “The Tremens Archives” are part of that. I am not entirely sure what this series is about, what makes it more unique than say release albums of electronic and improvised music. You will forgive me that I don’t have Lunt’s music engraved in my memory, but reading my own, old reviews, I would think he’s still on a similar path of guitar improvisations and computer treatments of those improvisations. Maybe it’s a bit more improvised now than I can remember from before, but there is still a fine atmospheric texture to these pieces, even in the distortion of ‘Golem Of Fire (A Tribute To Heraclite)’, by far the noisiest piece on this release. One could say Lunt explores a wider variety of approaches here, from the very ambient to the very noisy, from the sustaining to the more chaotic, chopped up style. That makes it perhaps less easier to pin down and maybe hardcore ambient/drone heads would tread carefully, but I think it’s quite a gain to expand on the notion of ambient and look for other possible treatments of the guitar in particular and the genre of drone/ambient music in general. Great release! (FdW)
His music is strange but never unlistenable. The songs are unique but they never regress into a mindless drone. And the compositions are inventive without sounding pretentious. Beautifully crafted cuts include “No Matter Where We Drown,” “Lift Your Hands Into the Light,” and “I Was Born in an Ocean of Sound.” Totally cool and dreamy stuff. Top pick! LMNOP aka dONW7
Screaming feedback at a distance meet a curtain of chiming strings, buzzing drones, dropping notes : tension for an electric landscapes that never begins to happen, past its intro : curving and bending feedback like a horny snake. The marauding sounds soon dissolve into light and then the room is empty, but a door opens, and the stage is now animated with strange vibrations, both metallic and fluid. Strings, strings everywhere, from various stories, through diverse treatments, different spaces, like blocks of them.
Sometimes, atmospheric strings mean something else, and ambient guitar pieces mean different; and yes, it can be reflective, contemplating as notes drip from attuned these metallic wires, through electric devices. Many ways to. Hence these pieces by Lunt, summoning such a palette of settings, that you realize you forgot what possibilities these could offer, with a slight sense of drama. Lunt takes you for a quiet walk on shattered glass : violence is lurking, heavy masses never far away, giant waves of washing larsen invading your streets (and you get washed overboard, but the motion is so slow that you find the desperate time to enjoy it). The ambiance (as in “ambient”) is a dynamic one, never asleep, just : distinct or blurred. Indeniably, space develops and spreads forward. A devouring mammoth of distortions is unleashed, so powerful that it disintegrates in its own hunger. This brutal and lengthy episode is simply followed by melodic arpeggios delicately set upon an elegant cello-sounding drone. As before, loops of short patterns support the aforementioned elements, knitting a subtle and light living wall-paper. The “same” and the “evolving” object getting together as an ancient technique of telling stories. Lunt (Gilles Deles, cofounder of WeAreUnique) cooks up his music as a delicate chef, whipping opulent feedback as he dresses piercing frequencies upon it, and powders the construction with reverberating notes upon notes, echoing as a multitude as they’re already gone, while you’re still in the room. Hazel Lee
For a number of years now French songwriter and sound engineer Gilles Deles has been producing a body of solitary releases under the Lunt pseudonym, Water Belongs To The Night being the tenth chapter. Without wasting metaphors, this album fits into a category of pleasantly resonating artifacts created with coiling stratifications and modifications of guitar timbres. The press sheet compares the sonorities to those of Fred Frith, Lee Ranaldo and Rafael Toral; the music’s refined weightlessness renders that statement politely hyperbolic, although vague superficial resemblances can be sparsely located. Perhaps one might hypothesize a long-distance relation with Aidan Baker’s layers and repetitions, and Loren Connors’ meagre melodic shards — comprising “wrong” notes left untouched — occurring over interestingly dissonant nimbi. In all honesty, though, nothing contained herein plumbs equivalent depths.
That said, if we’re willing to avoid the sterility of the “name names” game and treat this CD as a measurement of the manifold features of altered strings, or just as a semi-discreet aural proximity, then Lunt is the man for the job. The nine tracks are seamlessly fused in 49 minutes, the atmospheres varying from delicately crystalline to menacingly misshapen (“Golem Of Fire” is particularly effective). I can’t push myself to get genuinely intoxicated by the cleaner phrasing stuck upon the reiterations, but there’s definitely a large audience segment around the world which will be appreciative of the different combinations presented by the program. The label’s manifesto contains another somewhat immoderate declaration: “We, the children of the agonizing middle-class, we can still rely on the intellect, the lyrism (sic) and the audacity to give shape to chaos”. If, aesthetically speaking, this is a totally respectable release enriched by a beautiful cover, this writer can’t help detecting too much “middle-class” and too little “agony”. In spite of the good intentions, Deles looks like a detached beholder of fairly uncomplicated processes rather than an artist set to pour his heart out “inside” the nucleus of an authentic motility of the soul. Even so, there are several moments which deserve to be quietly savored, such as the final “I Was Born In An Ocean Of Sound”. Massimo Ricci
Lunt is Gilles Deles and this recording is rather the polar opposite of the preceding one. The label cites Fred Frith and Rafael Toral as influences and that can certainly be heard here, especially the mid-70s Frith of his initial solo release, an old favorite of mine. The first track also, I have to say, nods to Fripp/Eno but, as much as I love those recordings, i was happy to hear that Deles moves on from that attractive clime. A piece like “Stumbling Crystal” is Frithian, true, with it’s spiky, ice shards delicately arrayed, but it’s so inherently attractive that I forced myself out of an “influential” mode of appraisal and just enjoyed it. Still, I was also happy to hear a harsher tack taken on the ensuing cut, “Poison goes back to the ground”, and even happier when Deles pulls out the stops on “Golem of fire”, channelling Fripp to a degree but, again, doing it quite well. He gets harsher still on the penultimate track, ending in a stuttering, staticky grind, but ties things up peacefully on the final piece, with soft, echoey plucking that, again, isn’t earthshaking in approach but is done with taste and a fine ear. If that branch of guitarists appeals to you (as it does me), you’ll find this an enjoyable listen. Brian Olewnick
Całkiem niedawno ukazał się nowy longplay francuskiego artysty Gilles Delesa ukrywającego się pod pseudonimem Lunt.
Gilles Deles to kompozytor, muzyk, wokalista, realizator dźwięku i współzałożyciel wytwórni We Are Unique. Od kilku lat prowadzi własny netlabel o nazwie The Tremens Archives. Na początku czerwca netlabel przekształcił się w prawdziwą oficynę, ponieważ w katalogu tej małej firmy pojawiło się pierwsze wydawnictwo kompaktowe, a jest nim solowa płyta Delesa – „Water belongs to the night”. Twórczość Francuza oscyluje wokół szeroko rozumianej muzyki eksperymentalnej i ambient, w której przeważają brzmienia gitary elektrycznej. Z pewnością utwór „No matter where we drown” ucieszy wszystkich miłośników gitarowych dronów spod znaku Barn Owl czy solowych dokonań Marka McGuire’a (znanego z Emeralds).
Deles niezwykle umiejętnie wprowadza do muzyki ambient różnego rodzaju zapętlenia, drony, trzaski i field recording, bez użycia laptopowej obróbki („Lift your hands to the light”). Z kolei w nagraniach „The liquid gleam part 2” i „Stumbling crystal” nie zabrakło gitarowych improwizacji, nieco w stylu Freda Fritha. Najbardziej jazgotliwy fragment z całej płyty to „Golem of fire”, który można podpiąć pod tzw. brutalizm. Zaś kompozycji „The intranstivist” nie powstydziłby się sam Rafael Toral. W ostatnim nagraniu „I was born in an ocean of sound” Deles powrócił do wyciszonych i onirycznych brzmień.
Jeżeli do tej pory nie znaliście muzyki Gilles Delesa, to polecam zapamiętać to nazwisko. Deles jest niezwykle kreatywnym twórcą, który wciąż poszukuje nowych rozwiązań i połączeń w muzyce eksperymentalnej.
Diffusions de titres de l’album dans l’émission Génération Bip Hop de Philippe Petit du vendredi 06 juin 2014
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