In the archives of the electroacoustic pioneers, you have your unworthy bits, your obscurte but interesting pieces, and your little-known (or circulated) gems. Les couleurs de la nuit (38 minutes, 1982) is a little-known gem. This electroacoustic suite in nine segued movements compares easily – in scope, palette, depth, and mastery – to Francis Dhomont’s Sous le regard d’un soleil noir. Except that it’s less claustrophobic and livelier. Your attention is constantly being sollicited, but Bayle never crosses the threshold of saturation. Les couleurs de la nuit has everything I expect and love in electroacoustic music: studies of sound objects, a tale (an abstract tale told only through sound), internal logical that builds itself between your ears in ways undescribable yet unavoidable. This is a must-have.

Translated from French.

French electronic composer François Bayle is one of the most distinguished artists in his field. At long last, his nine-part 1982 composition, Les couleurs de la nuit, has been given a beautifully packaged CD and clear vinyl release. [The work] starts with intensity: Animé (“Lively”) is a rush of vaporous sibilance, swampy croaks and a choir of crickets, while Couleurs froissées (“Crushed Colours”) features a stuttering clarinet motif over insistent electronic wavelets. Contrary to the expectation its title might conjure up, Nuit noire (“Black Night”) is fast-paced and relentless, with sounds appearing, disappearing, alternating, and reiterating at a torrential pace (though Bayle’s use of a chromatically modulating two-note motif does wear out its welcome). The defining characteristic of Les couleurs de la nuit is its tireless creative action, with its rampant activity of new sounds, rhythms and contrasts never letting up. 8/10