Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch ‎– Époques

“French pianist / composer Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch returns with the stunning ‘Époques’, her sophomore album for FatCat’s pioneering 130701 imprint. Witnessing an increased assurance and dynamism in both Emilie’s playing and composing, ‘Époques’ marks a big step forward for the London-based artist. A bold and adventurous album that alternates between passages of emotive, sinuous solo piano; stirring compositions for viola and cello and some beautifully sprawling electronics, it has been masterfully pieced together to further reveal a unique and intelligent sense of artistry, and a composer who really does deserve your full attention. Losing some of the chill of Emilie’s previous album, ‘Époques’ sound is both warmer and more honestly, emotively grounded. With a more coherent narrative drive, it retains the former’s gentility and intricacy, whilst at times unravelling or teetering towards a palpably edgy, aggressive point of collapse. Over the course of its 44 minutes, the record modulates in intensity and moves between passages of sublime beauty to menace and despair. The tone for the album is outlined within the first two tracks. Opening with the sparse piano of ‘Martello’, which flowers into life and draws itself around you with sinuous vines and rising clusters of piano, it then falls into ‘The Only Water’, a rich yet murky, subterranean dreamscape of electronics and strings that hover and saw like Richard Skelton before evolving into some dark chamber duet, whilst slowly everything peels away into layers of delay. ‘Redux’ is another solo piano track, a meandering drift that winds its own sweet way before falling off into the glowering electronics and spaced cello figures of ‘Overflow’ and the dark, consumed-by delay piano of ‘Fracture Points’. The brooding ‘Ultramarine’ opens a sound-field that lies closer to film score – edging perhaps towards the sensibility of former labelmate Jóhann’s Jóhannsson’s brilliantly unsettling ‘Sicario’ soundtrack. The writing process for ‘Époques’ began back in early spring 2017, when Emilie was invited by The Britten-Pears foundation to spend two weeks alone at a composer’s retreat in Aldeburgh, Suffolk. Staying at the modernist bungalow formerly home to Imogen Holst (Benjamin Britten’s assistant and Gustave Holst’s daughter), these two weeks of exile from London (her home for a decade) entailed an almost complete absence of human interaction; long walks in the Suffolk coastal landscape; and long hours playing through the night on Holst’s little upright piano. It was an awakening opportunity to refresh the type of sounds she had been hearing for an extensive length of time. Away from the noise and rhythms of the city, paying attention to a landscape of reeds, marshes and waves, to slower, more tidal patterns, the experience fostered a more naturalistic approach, which can be felt in the record. The sound of the Church Walk piano itself is audible in abstracted form across the album, in tracks such as ‘Fracture Points’ and ‘Morphee’, as Emilie recorded every individual note of the little upright, at various velocities, and then turned those recordings into a virtual instrument using Logic Pro’s ESX24 sample mapping facility, enabling her to virtually “play” the Holst piano at any time, using a midi keyboard and laptop. Most of the solo piano pieces were initially developed in this way, before later being replayed and recorded live on a real piano at Goldsmiths Studio. The prevailing tone of the album emerged during these two weeks of isolation and grew over the following nine months.”

Label: 130701 – LP-13-29.

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album

Country: UK & Europe

Released: 2018

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