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Anyone who has met the guitarist Yaron Deutsch once in his life will never forget him. Here is a musician who is consumed by passion, and who is driven by the fire of discovery!
Last season, he knocked on the doors of Radio France, proposing to create three pieces for the France Musique program "Création Mondiale". These three pieces are the image of Nikel's repertoire: they are three worlds, at the antipodes of each other. There is little in common between the music of Austrian Klaus Lang, Frenchman Sylvain Marty, and American Matthew Shlomowitz, associated with Irishwoman Jennifer Walshe in a four-handed creation. Nikel likes to play the big gaps, or let's say "a form of controlled eclecticism", to use Yaron Deutsch's words.
Nikel also has a double sound identity, which comes from his instrumental colors: electric guitar, piano and/or keyboards, saxophone, drums and/or percussion.
This is where "Janus" comes in. Nikel's identity is indeed double: behind the rock band hides the contemporary music ensemble, unless it is the opposite...
Movement after movement, let's enter the multiple lives of Nikel!
Overture: Composers' views, with Jennifer Walshe and Sylvain Marty.
Jennifer, you collaborated for the first time with Nikel last May, recording with them "Minor Characters", five tracks co-written with your friend from London Matthew Shlomowitz. According to you, what is the sound identity of the band?
Jennifer Walshe: You could say that there is this sort of basic rock sound, because of the electric guitar played by Yaron and the drums played by Brian, but it's also because the part that Matthew wrote for Brian in "Minor Characters" uses the drums, which is not always the case in the music played by Nikel.
Brian and Matthew have in common their rock and punk culture; they played this music, therefore, they bring with them specific gestures on drums and percussion. It's very present in the band, it's even the essence of Nikel for me: it's almost a form of philosophy of the band.
Sylvain, what do you like in Nikel's work and sound?
Sylvain Marty: I like a lot of things, but most of all I like the spirit of the musicians, the way they approach their instrument. Things are really open. You can propose a lot of things; they push the research really far. They welcome with great attention writing proposals which, for my part, often go far in terms of verticality, of setting up, of succession of playing modes. We also have musical affinities. I like what they do, their choice of composers. Finally, it is a formation that brings me back to my origins.
The percussion, the piano, the saxophone are instruments with which I improvised a lot in the past, the guitar too. These are sounds that I had in me too, or in any case that are close to me. It was obvious when we met!
Development, or when Nikel tells his story in four voices
Voice n°1 : Yaron Deutsch , guitarist
Yaron, when you founded this group in 2006, the first idea of the group was to play totally new pieces, which implies discovering composers and commissioning them. Over the years, Nikel has built up a relationship with certain composers and has remained faithful to them.
The sound of the group has undoubtedly evolved too: how would you define it today?
Yaron: You can't escape the sound of the band. Nikel is a fusion of electronic and acoustic sound sources, from the moment the saxophone, piano, percussion and electric guitar are brought together - and now also the synthesizers and drums. Moreover, Nikel proposes a fusion of aesthetics and psychological references. Everyone brings their own background, their own sensibility to the group.
One could say that Nikel is a kind of new cognitive model in today's music. Maybe today, when we say "quartet", we don't think only "string quartet". I hope this can change people's minds!
I like this idea that by creating new sound combinations, we can make the musical vocabulary evolve. The mixed color of our quartet attracts the attention of composers with whom we collaborate on a regular basis.
The mixture of universes and traditions is more or less strong depending on the country. In France for example, this fusion is quite widespread thanks to the importance of the improvised and jazz scene. This is why our collaboration with composers such as Philippe Hurel or Hugues Dufourt is so rich. The composers make their honey of all these sounds, and that passes by our instruments, before passing in the machines and the electronics. It's a starting point for us, and if there is a confusion of genres, it's a good thing!
About the fidelity with some composers like Sarah Nemtsov, Klaus Lang, Matthew Shlomowitz, Marco Momi..., I would say that it's a bit like in life! It is better to have a handful of good friends than hundreds of superficial relationships. And in fact, if I take stock of the music I've played in my "career" as a musician, I'll remember maybe twenty or thirty composers who really count and whose music I always enjoy revisiting.
Last night I was looking at the catalog of composer James Dillon. Every four years or so, he wrote a new quartet for the Arditti (except for one, I believe, that was premiered by the wonderful Diotima Quartet). I like to think that this was probably at the request of the musicians. I can see Irvine Arditti calling James Dillon and saying, "Mr. Dillon, one more quartet please!
Because it is also a human adventure ?
Yaron: Yes, and that it's built over time, like friendships.
How has the group evolved?
Yaron : At the beginning, I asked myself a lot about the aesthetics of Nikel. There was this question: is the aesthetics the style of the music, or is it related to the way of playing, to the quality of playing? That's a real question! One of the main objectives for me, as a founding musician of Nikel, is to find a kind of balance between this requirement of playing on the one hand, and on the other hand an eclecticism in terms of musical languages, which is never random or accidental. We choose composers from a wide variety of backgrounds, but it's not a catch-all to get more concerts. It is better to do fewer concerts and create a "controlled" eclecticism. I am very keen on this idea.
As for the evolution of Nikel, I would say that we have improved on two points over the years. Our eclecticism has become clearer and more defined. We play better and better too. The two work together organically!
Voice 2: Patrick Stadler, saxophonist
Could you define what is for you the sound of the band ?
Patrick: It's a particular sound because of the electric guitar, the other instruments being more "conventional". The first sound of the quartet is powerful, round, warm, but it can also take other directions. We can play very fine, very subtle, very soft. When you play delicate, I like the idea that you don't know who is playing what.
In Nikel, there are these two sides. We can play hard, but also with finesse! We've been playing together for ten years, so we know each other, and we know what sound worlds we can create. There's not ONE group sound, there are several that we can refine.
Did the group compose its own repertoire?
Patrick : When Nikel was born, there was only one piece thought for this formation, it was composed by Louis Andriessen. So we had to create a repertoire, place orders. We did not have a catalog on which to base ourselves before creating the new pieces. This is nothing like the classical string quartet formation, where the repertoire is immense! It's very stimulating to discover the music of today's composers and to wonder which of them might write for Nikel. Sometimes, some choices don't materialize, because it doesn't work out. But that's part of the game!
Voice n°3 : Antoine Françoise, pianist and keyboardist
For you Antoine, does Nikel have a specific sound?
Antoine: I've been playing in the band since 2014, I came in last. In the beginning, I only played piano - I am a classical pianist by training. Keyboards came in little by little, and I really like the fact that I'm discovering keyboards, synths, in this context. Adding an electric sound to the electric guitar thanks to the keyboards seems natural to me. I find a different place now!
I really like this group: I play with three exceptional musicians, with very different backgrounds. Patrick is a wonderful chamber musician in the way he breathes and sings on his instrument. I sometimes wish he was a cellist so I could play the great sonatas with him! As for Brian, he comes from rock, but he has a crazy classical percussion playing! I know we think about music very differently, but I like that: we look for each other, we get inspired.
As for Yaron, he's a bit of a UFO... He's bringing the electric guitar to a level never before equaled in written music, with a perfectionism that forces us to look further and further.
I am perhaps the one of the four, who fights the most against the image of "rock band" which sticks to our skin, especially since I am on keyboards! I like to treat the band like a string quartet, I find it more interesting to look for this absurdity, this confusion! That's why I'm happy when we get pieces with a different approach. With Nikel, we have a certain past of very "testosterone" pieces, which ended up tiring us! And for example, working with Jennifer Walshe, who has a much greater energy than us, it takes us somewhere else!
So, we can't define anything in advance : I don't know what Nikel's sound will be like tomorrow if it comes in contact with other composers' energies, performers like Jenny !
Most contemporary music ensembles play on two levels: the 20th century repertoire, of which they propose their version, and creations. It's a little different with Nikel, which is almost exclusively creative...
Antoine: Personally, I would also like to develop these two approaches, because today there are other formations of this type (quartet or larger formation) that have commissioned pieces that Nikel has not yet played. I would be very interested in doing this work as an interpreter, to take up a score that is already known and played by another ensemble. So we would become interpreters of an existing repertoire, and at the same time we would continue to appropriate the pieces that we commission, and that each time we play them - and we often have the opportunity - are a rediscovery!
I am thinking for example of Fleisch by Enno Poppe, which we have performed almost a hundred times in five years: nevertheless, we rediscover it each time!
Because of the double identity of the group (rock and contemporary music), Nikel sometimes plays in places stamped "rock"?
Antoine: Not necessarily! We had done a work with Alexander Schubert that was really thought as a show, with lights, smoke machines, and the public standing with beers. But in the end, given that the world of contemporary music is quite "closed", whatever we do, it's still the same audience that comes, even if it's projected in another setting. It's hard to find a new audience!
I prefer to see things differently. I would love, for example, to play Rebecca Saunders or Sylvain Marty in a cellar: to bring this chamber music side, contemporary music written in other contexts, rather than trying to belong to a context that is not ours, that of rock, and where we find so many great musicians!
Voice #4: Brian Archinal, drummer, percussionist
Each of Nikel's creations offers a very contrasting face of the group. For France Musique, you played the chiseled, rather "abstract" music of Sylvain Marty, then the much more pop, rock music of Matthew Shlomowitz, in collaboration with vocalist and performer Jennifer Walshe.
Brian: It's true! Some composers sometimes like to use Nikel's instrumentation to approach a form of rock'n'roll, jazz, or let's say a more popular musical language than contemporary music. Matthew Shlomowitz, for example, took great pleasure in composing for this progressive band, which is a bit weird, adventurous...but which also has the ability to play extreme rhythms, experimental phrasing, and to dive into sonic exploration. So we have this double identity: we are both a rock band and a quartet in the more classical sense of the term. But what we really want is that these musics give us pleasure!
What does the adventure with Nikel mean to you?
It's an adventure I've been part of for ten years now. We have traveled a lot together, all over the world: South America, Oceania, Europe, USA...
The adventure is musical of course, but it is also human. We met so many people from different cultures! During the years of confinement, we had to stop traveling, sharing (except via the web)... Now, the Nikel adventure can start again and I'm very grateful for that: I love discovering different cultures and experiencing the world. For me the real adventure is here!
The quartet's repertoire is under construction. Do you create a lot of pieces each year?
We are happy that our work - and we work hard - attracts programmers, to be able to play in certain festivals, to participate in programs imagined by others. We are happy to get commissions, to be in contact with composers who understand our singularity. We will continue to search, not to be satisfied with the facet "rock group". We know how to do that, of course, it's our second nature. We want to develop a new repertoire, to meet programmers who will make us discover new composers.
What does Nikel's sound mean to you?
Brian: Since we've been working together for a long time, we found a system of working together. We all work hard on our own before meeting up with each other, because we live in three different countries, and it's sometimes complicated to meet up and play together. But Nikel's sound is always evolving, even when we rehearse. That's what happened for these two recording sessions for Création Mondiale/France Musique. We felt that when we rehearsed in Bern, Switzerland, where I am active. We have amassed over the years so many different instruments used in the "weird" world of contemporary music! We now have a whole collection of guitar pedals, and different synths: all this allows us to expand the sound palette.
By the way, next November, Nikel will transform itself into a kind of synthesizer band. We'll be three on synths, Patrick, Antoine and I, and we'll do what we like to do, explore beyond our usual sounds...
Anne Montaron
CODA
Find three faces of Nikel's repertoire on France Musique, World Creation program
° Distant and sweet song by Klaus Lang for electric guitar
Aiguilles by Sylvain Marty for four musicians
° Coming soon in Création Mondiale, week of September 12 : Minor Characters by Matthew Shlomowitz and Jennifer Walshe
