Dreieck Interférences, a collective like no other.

Stéphane Clor is a composer, double bass player and artistic director of a collective that brings together ensembles from all aesthetic horizons, who have one thing in common: playing music that has been freshly composed or composed live. Dreieck Interférences was born a year ago.

Together, collective, platform? How to define Dreick Interferences?

It is a cooperative of sound thoughts, a collective much more than an ensemble. We don't have a fixed number of musicians, but we are really a platform for meetings and exchanges between ensembles in the region to set up different projects. We bring together musicians who come from contemporary written music, improvisation, electronic music, jazz... Many of the musicians in the collective have gone through the same studies, notably at the Strasbourg Conservatory. With Dreieck, we think in terms of a network: musicians from very different musical backgrounds can meet. Gathering only by aesthetic affinities makes the ground barren. We have to be careful: often, collectives draw enclosures around them. Our society calls for marketing promotion. But marketing simplifies and demands clearly defined products. But creation is anything but an identified product! Therefore, the aim of Dreieck interferences is not to defend a type of music, but rather an attitude towards music. We defend creative music, living music, music in motion. We are not looking for labels, but for the crossing of aesthetics.

You are one of the youngest in the landscape of Strasbourg's ensembles and collectives. How do you find your place?

Dreieck Interférences is not an isolated collective, we are a league of several ensembles! We play noise and traditional music with an ensemble like Kreis/collectif continu, rock, punk, brutists, contemporary jazz, improvisation with the ensemble Pils, the mulhousian collective ödl... Dreieck is a junction point between these different structures. We participate for a lot in the dynamics of the music in Alsace, but we also work with musicians who come from Metz, Nancy, Belgium...

And during the lockdown, you asked all of Dreieck's musical forces to create compilations, which are available on your website, Bandcamp and Facebook. A nice way to discover new repertoires and sounds...

Some 80 musicians participated in the seven compilations for a total of 140 original pieces that we shared. These are exclusively creations between musicians who have exchanged only via the Internet. There is written music as well as improvisation...  

This idea started from a call from the musicians of the collective, extended to other musicians of the region who defend creative and experimental music: the idea was simply to create, during the confinement, a weekly compilation which had each time a different theme. The first theme was "tomorrow". Then there was "inside, outside", then "Combat", "Mutation"...

Stéphane Clor recorded last December in Strasbourg his new solo album Processions which will be released in spring 2021:

Hémisphère Son commissioned a work from you and the Hanatsu Miroir ensemble. What are your first ideas?

We are obviously delighted, especially as it is a commission that offers us an incredible luxury in these times of crisis: time. Time to think, to try, to create. The creation is planned for 2022, in Strasbourg of course. A composer has joined us Elsa Biston whom we will associate with Samir Amarouch. These will be pieces halfway between written music and improvisation, sometimes amplified, sometimes not, for transverse flutes - with in particular the contrabass flute, Ayako Okubo's favourite instrument of the Hanatsu Miroir ensemble - percussion and electronics. As for me, I play the double bass and a five-string piccolo cello: a hybrid instrument of my own! I transformed a child's cello, inspired by the baroque tradition... We'll start working together in March. But we already have lots of ideas... and lots of desires!

You can listen to the new album Latitudes: " one of the most beautiful recordings of the beginning of this year is "Latitudes" by the quartet Nuit, recorded in Mulhouse in December ... A collective work for a nocturnal music, troubled and dense, with deep and intense textures. "Mathieu Schoenahl, Festival Meteo Mulhouse.

And on France Musique, Jusqu'au bout de l'improv - Festival Meteo de Mulhouse :

Interview by Suzanne Gervais

Playlist of Stéphane Clor