Marc Masters wrote a review of Transmission in an Expanse of Firelight for his 200 words series on
The Out door where the artist is invited to also write a 200 or so word text on their record or whatever they choose. I wrote 172 words,
Guillaume Valllée did a
vidéo.
You can read it all / see it all
here or just below.
Marc Masters - Transmission In an Expanse of Firelight, Hear Me! LP (RS102)
I use the word “unpredictable” to describe music frequently, but there’s usually an imaginary asterisk attached. The surprise is often a matter of degree, a relative measurement: some work is harder to anticipate than other work, but it’s hard to call any music truly, purely, 100% unpredictable. Jean-Sébastien Truchy’s first full-length LP (after many strong tape releases) might not hit that 100% mark either, but it gets remarkably close - closer than anything I’ve heard in quite a while.
Part of this comes from Truchy’s deft use of contrasts: loud vs. quiet, harsh vs. subdued, noise vs. melody, impulsive vs. considered, controlled vs. unhinged. Refreshingly, he’s also not afraid to hard cut between these poles, slamming disparate elements smack up against each other because who says they shouldn’t be? In this sense
Transmission… hints at the psycho genre-jamming that Eye Yamastuka thrashed together with John Zorn, but there’s something more wide-frame and more naturalistic about Truchy’s juxtapositivism. I hear this most in his voice, a nakedly operatic instrument that gives the entropic wildness of this album a ripe humanity. If unpredictability is the origin of nature and the state it’s rapidly returning to, maybe there’s still room for us in there.
– Marc Masters
I’m
influenced by many things: music, literature, reception theory,
emptiness, compassion, Buddhism, life, nature. Nature - by example, and
the notion of emptiness have especially been a major influence.I try to
look at sounds and structures as neutral elements that have not yet been
categorized by preconceived notions, judgement and/or taste. Of course I
fail at this as I am victim of my ego, still a prisoner of “taste”,
filled with self-doubt and frightened by the judgement of others toward
myself and what I do. Although I would like to pretend the opposite, I
guess I’m not removed from the process of composition. Still, I try my
best not to judge the juxtapositions I create. The music found on
Transmission in an Expanse of Firelight, Hear Me!
is a way for me of growing, of healing. A way of looking at my faults
and fears, confronting them, welcoming them, opening myself to everyone
and hopefully becoming a better person. If it can help others at the
same time, somehow, great.
