Aarde
A Whole Day
FORMAT: CDR
LIMITED EDITION: 50
RUNNING TIME: 35:12
CATALOGUE NUMBER: DirtyCDR 025
RELEASE DATE: October 2007
excerpt
about
Aarde was formed in 2004 when Guillaume Gargaud met Loïs Laplace and joined forces for some improvised sessions, searching for a deeper exploration in electronic music. During this time collaborating, Guillaume has integrated prepared guitar in his computer music and Loïs has started using Kyma system. Aarde's aim is not really defined for the moment. It is a duet, but not restrictive in what could come from it. Probably improvisation. Noise or melody, this could happen too.
Guillaume Gargaud is a French musician known for guitar work and his love of improvisation. He studied the art of improvisation at IMA, France from 1999-2001. After this Guillaume joined Zwann Ei collective who specialise in sound and image creations and how they relate to the body. In 2007 Guillaume also started participating in the future ethnic comparative research Game Alone Synthesis.
Loïs Laplace was born in 1973, and his first musical outing was at the age of seven, learning classical piano for a few years. Later he was interested in playing popular, folk music and eventually jazz, after playing piano in some band. Things really started to change for Loïs when he discovered the magical sounds of free jazz at the age of twenty. After high school, Loïs worked on merchant ships for several years, going to sea for months, which meant playing less music because he couldn't bring a valuable keyboard in his luggage. But after a while Loïs discovered digital music, and with the purchase of his first computer, he found that it was possible to play with sound with a single laptop, and that was a very convenient feature when he had to navigate at sea!
His musical interest then moved to 'musique concrËte', and 'improvised electronic'. After an internet release, in 2006 Loïs Laplace released his debut album 'Inland' on Dirty Demos, and contributed to both the 'Obsevation Point' compilations. Loïs' next solo release for the label is 'To Semiturn', an abstract film containing footage recorded at sea along with some of his own music.
reviews
"Aarde next with a 6 tracker CDr on Dirty Demos. 'A Whole Day' is a mighty (sometimes a smidge dark) ambience which long term readers/sufferers of our review pages will recall I once thought was pointless. After I found my ears in the back of the wardrobe a couple of years ago, I've developed a fondness for computer generated ghostly tendrils of digital static & fuzz and that.
I appreciate the calming effect this music has on your head after a twat of a day at work or a heady night on the lash or too many crack donkey pipes. This is very beautiful & drifty with sinister undertones that may make you a little paranoid if you've been mixing brick dust with your crack."
- Ant, Norman Records
"Last year we first heard of Loïs Laplace when we reviewed his 'Inland' CDR for Dirty Demos (see Vital Weekly 553), now he returns as one half of Aarde (the Dutch word for 'earth', but if they know?). The other half is Guillaume Gargaud. Among them they a 'Kyma system', guitar and computer. Welcome to the world of glitch music.
In the near by past I would and perhaps could have said something about things being underground and a bit less underground, explain something about why something is released on a handful on Dirty Demos and some get to 12K or Line, but playing Aarde makes life a little bit more difficult. Simply because they are on Dirty Demos and one could wonder why not 12K. That's why.
What Aarde does is something that is not very new or different, nor too gritty and low in recording quality. What they do, is nicely recorded, produced with depth, a good view of what makes this music interesting instead of boring ('hey, we're minimalists') and simply could have been easily released as a 'real' CD on some of the more prestigious labels. Nothing new, but all is good here. Tracks have the right length, there is variation, there is tension and it's beautiful."