Crónica 126 CD
Release: 28 February 2017
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Paris-born composer Emmanuel Mieville studied sound engineering in a film school and musique concrète at the famous GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales). He has also studied ethnic instruments and played Javanese gamelan orchestra in Paris for two years.
Since his childhood, Mieville has been constantly listening to creative radio programs, something that has fueled his approach to experimental music and soundscape composition. He has produced many programs for French national radios (France-Culture and France-Musiques).
Mieville’s interest in aural perception and memories engraved in urban and wildlife environments have yielded compositions where field recordings are layered, mixed and sometimes transformed through effects. His goal is to portray a specific location, to let its blurred sonic emotions reach the listener’s ears, to perform in concert and compose the “concrete” substance of it for the listener’s benefit.
The title of this album comes from the Japanese translation of the Sanskrit word and points to a chapter of the Lotus Sūtra, one the most famous text of Mahāyāna Buddhism.
All tracks, except Tanit Astarté, are drawn from this inspiration cycle, and materials include different field recordings from Asia. Recordings of Tibetan nuns from Copan monastery and FM radio in Hong Kong were used in Nyorai. Murasaki means “purple” in Japanese and was composed after a trip to Japan, and the frequent immersion onto the stages of Butō dancers. Taisi Funeral is a recording of Buddhist chanting for a deceased person recorded in a small village of Taiwan, mingled with my own synthesis sounds. Tanit Astarté is a quotation from Antonin Artaud’s book Héliogabale, and refers to the moon goddess, as described in Phoenician myths.