Cover art by A.L., original pic by Frederic Labaune. macromicrophoto
OUC010 : Quentin Manfroy / Flute Solo
Thanks to my mountain guide, musician and soundman Thomas Manoury, this music was recorded in Iceland in the depths of frozen caves, in a lighthouse, in glacial crevasses, in the vicinity of enormous waterfalls or in more conventional concert halls.
The purpose of this disc is to succeed to make a monophonic instrument deploys the polyphony.
And perhaps through the contact with all these little drops and this water that never ceases to flow (it is its nature), the flute works here to make audible the voice of "the spirit of the sources", so tenuous it may be.
Quentin is a classical music trained flutist who studied at CRM Brussels.
At the same time, his passage through F. Cassol's improvisation class (founder of Aka Moon) at the end of the 90ties motivated him to pursue a career as a classical musician and an improviser. He joined different jazz or rock band like Orange Kazoo (renamed Belgistan Orchestra later).
He then worked with outstanding musicians such as the Scottish composer Daniel Barbanel with whom he made many tours and records, or Song Yujhé, a Chinese singer and composer who inspired him on the level of sound directions and distances.
Thanks to Gregoire Tirtiaux and his in-depth work on Gnawa music, he discovered trance music with Maalem Hassan el-Ghadiri from Marrakesh. A long collaboration resulted from that encounter.
Currently he plays in the galaxy Mâäk (directed by Laurent Blondiau) with the big band Mikmaak and MW'soul (with the singer Ghalia Ben Ali).
He also works with the supersymmetric band Mû (with the leader Yann Lecollaire, see OUC008), Ananke quintett, Secret Base, Matthieu ha and the Syndicat d'Initiative, the spectral Gong Extensions ...
A certain tendency to desecration has been noticed in some unavoidable projects like the Gurkenpanpan 2 regressive musac cover band, or the Promethean POMPEI.
Played among others with:
Fabian Fiorinni, Sturm un klang, Garret list, Frederick Rzewsky, Coryfeye string quartet, Emmanuel Louis.
Quentin
The solo project is an intimate reflection about his instrument. For this solo, when playing live, it is purely acoustic. An instrument, a musician, an audience, a room.
Only one question is essential to Quentin: how to succeed in merging the sound of a modern flute and the techniques from the contemporary music on one side, keeping in mind that breath has come from the depths of the ages, from before history, perhaps even before language on the other side? He believes that there is a door opening "the space within ».
He is currently working on what can be labeled as "Great Catalogs" for flute. This research would integrate the contemporary techniques of his instrument to the tonal or modal music, in order to generate polyphony. An obscure and misunderstood phrase by the composer Victor Kissine, written to conclude an analysis of a cantata by Webern, is probably at the origin of this work: ‘The vertical time is SUPERIOR to the horizontal time!’
The idea behind the development of these "Great Catalogs" is to give the numerous flutists in the world new multiphonic ways that could be integrated to the tonal system to "fold" the flute on itself, to verticalize it. These works will be the subject of a future record.
Sound and mix: Thomas Manoury and Vincent Poujol.
Mastering: Finnur Hákonarson
Quentin Manfroy Flute Solo glacier from Quentin Manfroy on Vimeo.
This acoustic solo contains twelve worked improvisations.
Digital release on the 20th of October 2017.
Track listing:
1: Flute Solo, Pt. 1
2: Flute Solo, Pt. 2
3: Flute Solo, Pt. 3
4: Flute Solo, Pt. 4
5: Flute Solo, Pt. 5
6: Flute Solo, Pt. 6
7: Flute Solo, Pt. 7
8: Flute Solo, Pt. 8
9: Flute Solo, Pt. 9
10: Flute Solo, Pt. 10
11: Flute Solo, Pt. 11
12: Flute Solo, Pt. 12
And on Bandcamp:
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