Interruptions — an evocative title for Manuella Blackburn’s third solo album — feels less like a pause and more like a careful rewiring of the everyday. In this collection of five acousmatic works, Blackburn transforms the ordinary into the extraordinary, turning familiar sounds into vibrant sonic sculptures that demand your full attention, even as they playfully tug at your imagination.

Blackburn, a British electroacoustic composer and a master of the acousmatic craft, has carved out a niche as a meticulous soundsmith. Her work is a masterclass in detail — an intricate mosaic of small sounds delicately clustered into polished, fantastical worlds. With Interruptions, she invites us into these worlds, each track a doorway into an alternative reality where home appliances hum with existential depth and microplastics might as well be stars in an alien cosmos.

The album opens with Home Truths, a contemplative yet playful piece that feels like eavesdropping on a domestic space that’s come alive. Everyday sounds — doors creaking, water dripping — unfold into something uncanny, as if the house itself were whispering secrets about the people who inhabit it.

Microplastics dives headlong into Blackburn’s knack for turning ecological concerns into sonic poetry. The sharp, glassy textures evoke a shimmering sea polluted with invisible invaders — beautiful, yes, but with an unsettling undertow. It’s an aural reminder of humanity’s footprint, refracted through Blackburn’s lens of meticulous transformation.

Farewell Fairlight serves as the album’s nostalgic centerpiece. A twelve-minute love letter to the iconic Fairlight CMI synthesizer, it juxtaposes vintage tones with Blackburn’s modern acousmatic toolkit. It’s not so much a goodbye as a reimagining, where yesterday’s technology becomes tomorrow’s inspiration.

Cupboard Love is perhaps the album’s wittiest offering — a cheeky exploration of culinary chaos that turns the clatter of pots, pans, and kitchen drawers into a percussive symphony. Blackburn’s playful touch is on full display here, proving that even the mundane can become delightful in the hands of a master composer.

The final track, Landline, closes the album on a hauntingly nostalgic note. The sound of a ringing telephone — a relic in our age of smartphones — echoes through a richly textured soundscape, a ghostly reminder of connections lost and found.

Interruptions isn’t just an album; it’s an invitation to listen differently. Blackburn’s ability to transform the banal into the beguiling is a testament to her skill and vision. These works aren’t merely interruptions in the flow of everyday life — they’re celebrations of the strange beauty hidden within it.

With Interruptions, Manuella Blackburn once again proves why she’s one of the most compelling voices in acousmatic music. It’s an album that challenges, charms, and delights in equal measure — a perfect companion for anyone willing to trade the ordinary for the extraordinary, even for just a moment.

Elsa Justel’s L’ombre du pont (“The Shadow of the Bridge”) is a bridge in its own right — a sonorous structure linking past to present, abstraction to homage, and chaos to crystalline clarity. In her third solo album, the Argentine-born, France-based composer masterfully merges acousmatic abstraction with heartfelt tributes to some of the most revered figures in the world of electroacoustic music.

Opening with the aptly titled Déjà vu, Justel seems to tease the listener with the sensation of having been here before, only to pull the rug out with unpredictable sonic twists. It’s a journey through shadowy terrains, where familiar echoes transform into alien whispers, a reminder that nothing under this bridge is quite as it seems.

The four “abstract” pieces in the album are anything but opaque — they are luminous fragments of sound, meticulously arranged. Ce monde et ailleurs (“This World and Elsewhere”) feels like an existential question posed in frequencies and textures, while Casi nada (“Almost Nothing”), a tribute to Luc Ferrari, revels in its understated brilliance, creating an expansive universe from a seemingly minimal palette.

Then comes L’ombre du pont’s heart: a series of seven short tributes to giants of the electroacoustic genre. These aren’t mere imitations or pastiches; they are love letters penned in Justel’s unique voice. Haricots et petits bâtons (“Beans and Little Sticks”) is playful and whimsical, like a child’s drawing turned into sound. Wessen (“Whose”) honoring Beatriz Ferreyra, feels like a spirited conversation between the past and the present, where Justel’s voice harmonizes beautifully with Ferreyra’s legacy.

Pieza en forma de té (“Piece in the Shape of Tea”) is steeped in quiet reflection, as if savoring an aromatic cup while contemplating life’s fleeting moments. In contrast, L’expérience caustique (“The Caustic Experience”) channels François Bayle with sharp, sizzling bursts of sound that crackle like an electrical storm.

Justel’s deep roots in both Argentina and France shine through the album’s textures. Her profound academic background — studying under luminaries such as Horacio Vaggione — blends seamlessly with her knack for transforming the everyday into the extraordinary. These tracks are not merely compositions but sensory experiences, each one as tactile as it is audible.

The album’s closer, C’est lui (“It’s Him”) — an hommage to Francis Dhomont —, feels like a final tip of the hat — a playful yet poignant punctuation to a collection that oscillates between reverence and innovation.

L’ombre du pont sounds like an auditory memoir. Justel captures both her own voice and the echoes of the composers who have inspired her. It’s a sonic kaleidoscope — each twist revealing new patterns, all held together by the steady hand of a composer who knows how to make the invisible bridge between sound and meaning tangible.

In the shadow of this bridge, you’ll find beauty, wit, and a generous dash of mystery. Whether you’re a seasoned aficionado of acousmatic music or a curious newcomer, L’ombre du pont invites you to pause, listen, and marvel at what lies beneath and beyond.

Twenty-four favourites, in alphabetical order: […] Emma Margetson – Contemplations (empreintes DIGITALes) […]

There’s a peculiar magic in a stroll. It’s not a march, nor a sprint, but a meander — wandering without urgency, where time folds like a map and the scenery becomes the story. Gilles Gobeil’s Promenades captures this unhurried magic, offering seven pieces that aren’t just strolls in the sonic sense but excursions into imagination, memory, and reflection.

A veteran of acousmatic music, Gobeil has long been a master of crafting soundscapes where reality and the abstract coalesce. In Promenades, he draws inspiration from all corners — film, improvisation, and even the quiet poetry of everyday life. The album feels like an intricate scrapbook, with each piece representing a page where sound, narrative, and texture intermingle.

Take the opening track, Un cercle hors de l’arbre, which could be the soundtrack to an imaginary dérive through a forgotten forest, its fixed medium bubbling with subtle tensions. Or Sentinelle, where Yves Charuest’s alto saxophone emerges like a beacon in the vastness of space, tethered to Gobeil’s fixed medium in a haunting dialogue that feels like the auditory equivalent of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey.

And then there’s Sous l’écorce des pierres — promenade, a tribute to Folkmar Hein, where every sound feels like a step crunching over Berlin’s storied streets. It’s contemplative and cinematic, evoking both the passage of time and the permanence of memory. Meanwhile, Associations libres, the album’s shortest track, delivers a jolt of spontaneous energy as Patrice Soletti’s electric guitar tangles with Gobeil’s fixed medium — a frenetic sprint in an otherwise meditative journey.

The ensemble Déviation(s) shines in Détour, where violin, cello, and guitar weave an intricate tapestry of sound, their improvisational impulses tethered yet free, like a bird circling an open sky. It’s both structured and uncharted, an echo of the ensemble’s name and ethos.

With Dans l’air du soir, Gobeil invites us into Debussy’s dreamscape, where the air shimmers with twilight hues. François Couture’s piano whispers like a distant lullaby, delicate yet grounding. And closing the album is La vie se repose, a tender homage to the late sculptor Oscar Wiggli. Here, Gobeil crafts an auditory meditation on stillness, with textures that feel like they’re breathing — soft, slow, and alive.

What makes Promenades so captivating is Gobeil’s ability to create music that feels both deeply personal and universally resonant. His use of fixed medium doesn’t isolate but rather invites — each piece is an open-ended story where listeners are free to insert their own experiences, memories, and musings.

As a whole, Promenades is less an album and more a collection of sonic essays. It meanders, reflects, and occasionally surprises, but always remains true to its central theme: the art of the stroll. Gilles Gobeil has crafted an album that doesn’t just ask you to listen — it asks you to wander.

Comme son titre l’indique, le nouvel album de Gilles Gobeil est dédié aux Promenades, où l’on croise les présences aussi bien de Debussy que de Folkmar Hein, Chris Marker, Stanley Kubrick, Oscar Wiggli ou Yves Charuest.

Des promenades aux allures de randonnées épiques et mystérieuses, menaçantes ou apaisantes, véritables chemins de tous les possibles, où les expérimentations forment des bifurcations aux fils entremêlés.

L’électro-acoustique se pend au cou d’un jazz virtuose avant de se prendre les pieds sur des souffles venus d’un ailleurs invisible, à l’impermanence sensible.

Gilles Gobeil éveille nos sens, nourrit notre amour pour les recherches sonores aux frontières parfois floutées, héritage majestueux de dynasties d’alchimistes, capables de transformer le bruit en symphonies du Monde. Ensorcelant.

Una mezcla de los destacados del último tiempo y los mejores discos de 2024 (sin ningún orden en particular), en opinión de los colaboradores de Loop.

Alejandro Albornoz: Académico e investigador, música electroacústica, arte sonoro

• […]
• Emma Margetson, Contemplations
• Horacio Vaggione, Schall / Rechant
• […]