Double bass player turned leader, Kham has placed his double bass, a fine mix of power and gravity, at the center of a virtual band in which he occupies all the positions. Percussions struck on the wood of his imposing instrument, discrete brooms or rhythmic double bass have handed over their spells to the printed circuits of a looper. Looped, cadenced, each one was then replayed on itself, the time of several measures. The time for Kham to install the deep tone and the warmth of strings that resonate on the wood to become storytellers. A music with images where the vibrations blacken the first lines, impulse melodies and themes, then leave the solos the freedom to speak to write the following.
First remix out may 15th : A musician who usually works alone on the composition of his songs, Kham Meslien delivered three pieces, taken from his album Fantômes…Futurs, to the artistic creativity of four remixers.
Paul Kendall, musician, producer, avant-garde, explorer of electronic sounds. Chapelier Fou who, like Kham, likes to play and sample, mixing cables with acoustics. Souleance, the duo Soulist + Fulgeance which fuses beatmaking and organic instruments. Zenzile, a dub group that pushes its boundaries into electro.
F comme (Paul Kendall remix) The contemplative immensity has become a devastated territory. Paul Kendall transformed it into a post-apocalyptic universe of which this remix is the soundtrack. Saturated in an environment that its total desertion has made inhospitable, the bass strings resonate between the wrecks of cars and the dry, burning wind which sweeps and lifts the rare remains of vegetation. F like the ghosts that we swear we see behind the broken windows of the houses still standing. F for Frisson. F for Go, hope is still possible, far behind the horizon line.
His meditation finished, Kham entered the door of Chapelier Fou’s workshop. Right away, the
craftsman had an idea. Meter and needle in hand, it was with precise scissor strokes that he cut
and reduced the double bass melodies into small pieces, which can now be arranged as he
wishes. What was this secret that allowed him to make the acoustic instrument the main
element of an electronic sound patchwork? We barely knew that he had machines with which he
had adjusted the rhythmic lining, and printed circuits which he had used to apply a dancefloor
primer..
It is first in a rustling of woody percussion that Kham and the Souleance duo become
acquainted. Presentations made and confidence established, they set off on a journey into a
universe with retro-futuristic notes. Evocative and dreamlike, the journey then leads them to fly
over a land from which songs arise which have taken the place of nostalgic synthesizers. The
vibrations of the strings in the body of the imposing instrument acted like an irresistible magnet.