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The meeting between Amaury Cornut and Stéphane Garin of Ensemble 0 gave rise to the crazy idea of resurrecting Elpmas in a stage version, half instrumental and half electronic. This album was composed in 1991 by Moondog, with computers and samples by Andi Toma, half of the electro duo Mouse on Mars. Released in 1992, the album presented itself as an ecological ode to nature and the cosmos, while at the same time championing the cause of aborigines. Andi Toma had managed to convince Moondog, who was very attached to acoustic instruments and human performers, that the complexity and rigor of his canons would find an ideal realization in the implacable regularity of computers.Ensemble 0 's project proved even more ambitious with the release of a magnificent book-disc, "Elpmas' (Moondog) revisited/revisited, released in 2018 by Murailles Music, Ici d'ailleurs and Super Loto Editions.
Amaury, can you tell us more about the Elpmas stage project with Ensemble 0?
Amaury Cornut: The idea came about when I met Stéphane Garin at a Folle Journée event in Nantes many years ago. He's a percussionist on the one hand, and a techno enthusiast on the other. Elpmas was an obvious choice. It was a challenge to bring this music to life on stage, as it is a pure studio album. Moondog, with the help of Andi Tomas of Mouse on Mars, had sampled all the notes of a marimba one by one to create computer-generated canons. He thought it would be, if not impossible, far too complicated to find musicians capable of playing the sinuous canons that make up this record so coldly and without a single false note. We took the opposite gamble, starting with an initial version for six instrumentalists, with Julien Pontvianne, who can play all the sax and clarinet parts, Joël Merah, who cleaned up the 237 pages of sheet music from my archives and, as a bonus, copied the entire score of a piece for which I didn't have the score, all-round percussionists and Vincent Malassis as master of ceremonies, who works the tapes live. There's also the complicity of a sound engineer who manages the samples, because in Elpmas, which reads "sample" backwards, it's necessary to use samples even live, as it's impossible to have sixteen marimbas players on stage. Added to this is a lighting engineer who has created visual tableaux for each track.
Has this initial line-up evolved?
At first, we used original samples sent by Andi Toma for the viola da gamba scores, as if the ghosts of the original record were with us on stage. They have since been replaced by Barbara Hünninger, much to our delight. All vocal parts have also been re-recorded, with leads provided by Jonathan Seilman and Vanille Fiaux. Four of the Macadam Ensemble's singers are now on stage with us, having recorded backing vocals for the album. Rodolphe Alexis recorded field recordings that perfectly match the ambience of the original record. Tomoko Sauvage, on another occasion, lent her voice to the reading of a poem that introduces a piece on the disc: we used this tape with her permission. The current version features eleven musicians on stage.
Stéphane, could you summarize the main stages of this project for us?
Stéphane Garin: As with any self-respecting project, it all began quite informally over a meal between myself, Amaury and Cyril Jollard, who at the time was the programmer and creator of the superb Variations festival in Nantes. The idea was exciting, as it allowed us to envisage a reading of the album that we could not only bring to the stage, but also re-record using exclusively acoustic instruments. The work was then organized with the invaluable contribution of Murailles music for production and the organization of residencies. I was in charge of gathering the troops, while Joël Merah was in charge of arranging and re-orchestrating Moondog's original music.
We realized that this album couldn't be played live on stage with the full band. For example, the opening Pow-wow features 25 marimbas parts in canons. So we had to make use of samples broadcast on stage, within which the musicians on stage had to deploy themselves. This is where Guillaume's sound work comes in, positioning the speakers on stage and balancing the acoustics between broadcast and live, and Azeline's lighting work.
Can you also describe this beautiful object, the Elpmas record/book set?
Amaury Cornut: The original album exists only as a CD in a plastic case, accompanied by a booklet. Since we wanted to bring back something human and organic in our version, as opposed to the machine-like character of the original, we also wanted to counterpoint the digital version with this vinyl, and therefore analog, version. We completely re-recorded all the material: there was no question of putting on vinyl a medium originally intended for digital support! Soon enough, we were talking about a book-disc co-publication between Murailles Music, Ici d'ailleurs and Super Loto Editions. The format was a double 10″ vinyl with an 84-page art book containing four texts by four authors, based on the major themes that make up Elpmas: pulsation, travel, nature and the cosmos. I signed a short preface that sets the context for this record. We chose the authors with Super Loto Editions, who took care of the book part. This offers very different approaches to the same object. The same principle applies to the visuals, this time with two artists per theme, also selected by SLE.
Stéphane Garin: It's just about the finest record I've made to date: a kind of suicidal production object, given the state of the music market today. But I believe it will have a long life, because it's of great quality and respects whoever decides to own it. It's a visual work of the highest quality, bringing together ten designers, a beautiful print run, top-flight mastering by David Chalmin, impeccable recording by Benjamin Maumus and the invaluable support of GMEA (Didier Aschour).
Amaury, for this project you also called on the talents of Vincent Malassis, who performs a personal electronic composition for the last fifteen minutes of the concert, a soaring, timeless, almost ritualistic moment. What were the reasons for your choice?
Amaury Cornut: My collaboration with Vincent dates back to 2012. At the time, he had already developed a composition for magnetic tape inspired by Moondog's "Cosmic Medidation". It's this same basis that he developed to arrive at the moment you describe. Even if, unlike the rest of the team, Vincent has no academic musical knowledge, he's a real musician in the same way as the others: he's a real platinum player, he masters sampling perfectly, and isn't that the heart ofElpmas after all? When I suggested Vincent to Stéphane Garin, he agreed with me. We had to transform "Cosmic Meditation" into something else, and that was indeed the only moment of freedom we allowed ourselves in relation to the original record. While I love listening to the original in the quiet of my living room, it didn't seem worthwhile to end such a rich set with this very ambient piece. However, there was no question of changing the order of the track list; we wanted to finish with this long piece. I see it as a digestion of everything that's happened in the last hour. For me, the original has this ability to blur temporal markers, and if you find that the rendering is "out of time", then it's mission accomplished!
Vincent, why are you so interested in Moondog?
Vincent Malassis: Amaury had sent me some diagrams of Moondog compositions, portraits representing the past and the future. I was fascinated by his work on time, and as I'm used to working with loops and their shifts, counterpoint spoke to me, as did the complexity of rhythmic signatures, which paradoxically are so obvious in his beautiful melodies, which seem so simple that you just sing along. I've been listening to Moondog for some time and his music feeds me, so it's great to have been able to dissect a complete disc to try and understand this artist.
What's your role in the live performances with Ensemble 0?
V.M.: Elpmas is filled with field recordings and soundscapes from Moondog's travels. I burned the tapes on vinyl. I use the turntable as an instrument, which allows me to modulate the sounds and send them into effects. For the end of the concert, I composed two pieces that follow on from each other, inspired by the last two tracks on the album: "Introduction And Overtone Continuum" & "Cosmic Meditation". The loops are enriched by distortion, magnetic tape, reverb, delay and feedback, moving from soaring ambient to mental noise, which I dose on the mixing desk.
Stéphane, I think there were some particularly powerful moments with Elpmas, such as your performances in New York, one of the artist's main cities of residence. You had some wonderful encounters there. Can you tell us more about them?
Stéphane Garin: I remember a very beautiful person, about 75 years old, who told me that when she had just got a job at MOMA in New York in the 1950s, she used to pass the Viking on 6th Avenue every day on her way to and from the office. One day, she decided to talk to him, and became his friend. It was quite moving that she told me this story on June 21, when she had come especially to see us play to celebrate Moondog's music.
What about this street performance, filmed on June 21, 2019 by Derrick Belcham, in the footsteps of Moondog?
SG: The plan was for the music to fit in the street and in our suitcases. We chose a few compositions that we humbly tried to interpret experimentally, as Moondog must have done in his day.
I proposed Jean-Brice Godet above all for his work around the cassette, which brought a lo-fi angle to the project. Thomas Bonvalet was there from the start, and Alexis Degrenier was unable to join us for health reasons. This ephemeral moment no longer exists, and only existed during the months of May and June 2019.
Interview by Guillaume Kosmicki
