HARPAGÈS

Simples visions

CD-R / Download, autres directions in music

The carpet of sound slowly creeps in, flows all over the room, spreads itself in every corner and every edge, and then slowly disappears again like the tide, leaving only subtle scratching noises and a vibrating, warm bass-sound to linger on. Which is a misconception, because the noise is just as much music as is the bass-sound or the ripe layers of trance-like evolving organs before. Then the piece turns around gently and moves back into the quarters it came from, even though everything has changed. More noise. More sounds. Everything is slightly darker, with foreign sounding voices singing in a strange harmony. Nevertheless, it is beautiful. Ephemerally strings, horns or guitars float into focus and the disappear again. I wish I’d put this on repeat, so the travel could go on and on and on and I’d never have to face daylight or the real world again. I could keep on conjuring images from my mind and live in them. I’d never ever have to eat or work or fear again.

Evidently, “simple visions” is not meant as an easy piece, though it can be listened to as such. The sounds and grooves might flow by the listener easily, leaving him feeling subconsciously lighter and better than before, but also without knowledge and thereby no effect of learning (somehow in the end it all comes up as having to learn something, from experiences to informations, everything has to be stored and processed.) The noise-parts around minute 20-22 are definitely not for everyone, especially when listened to closely, but they are an important signature point in the work. At this point everything changes. No more layered sounds, the world has turned to noise. Stretched back to the thought about information and experience and combined with the distorted singing in the background, I’d call this a comment on the current information overflow all of us in the western world have to endure. Every day we have to digest about 2000 advertisements (incl. logos, shop-signs, magazines, etc.) and I won’t even start about the useless mass of political or economic information most of us think they have to store and keep ready at all times. To get half an hour to get out of this drag is a present more valuable than time itself.

This piece was produced to accompany a movie, but for several reasons, the label “movie soundtrack” is far from encompassing its worth in any way. Most important of all, the music was ready and done before the movie was even started. Arnoud Bologne, avantgarde filmmaker from France, listened to Harpagès’ “simple visions”, then searched for and added visionary material to the sounds, producing a minimalist feature which was first shown together with the music on a festival in Lille in 2003. But even without this information, the visionary power of “simple visions” is enormous, because it evokes pictures in the listeners mind almost instantly. And even though this drone – like any drone – could definitely be called minimalist, there is quite a lot happening at all times. Only when certain lines of sounds start to fade into the back slowly and almost as faded by a ghostly hand, the intricate structures of the layers of sound apparent become visible. Funnily though, the recurring clicking noises do remind me a lot of old movie-projectors, but with the rise of VHS and MiniDV in every household the sound of a movie-projector might not be as common as I remember it to be. Anyway, the sound of beautiful, harmonious (?) drones like these is also sadly missing in most homes.