Tonal Union presents AKUSMI

CLOT Magazine

The next mixtape comes from Akusmi, the new project moniker of French-born, London-based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Pascal Bideau. It's a dive into Indonesian sounds territories, following his recently published album Fleeting Future (Tonal Union, 2022), which was partly inspired by the artist's journey to the east-Asian country. In Indonesia, Bideau immersed himself in traditional Gamelan and gong music, and many of the themes, motifs and melodies on Fleeting Future stem from the 'Slendro' scale, one of the essential tuning systems used in Gamelan. However, it is not musical scales but scales as in the size or extent of things that most fascinates Bideau. Specifically, he explains the compelling way things dramatically change when you shift from any given scale to another." From the atomic to the celestial, the micro and macro universes of dizzying complexity co-exist within each other. Bideau, who also teaches music production and sound/visual installation at the Roundhouse and the University of East London, feels there is a direct connection between the music he makes to this: You take a simple repetitive pattern, seemingly consistent in its shape, but the more you listen to it, the more it changes and becomes something else. Of course, this is the premise of minimal music, and if you listen to Steve Reich's "six pianos" or Terry Riley's "In C", it does precisely that. But I try to condense it to a much more compact/short time frame to convey the dizziness and epics of the shifting. On the visual arts side, Bideau makes connections between the work of David Goodsell, a structural biologist who paints watercolours of cell interiors obtained by electron microscopy, and many of the traditional aboriginal art that convey the same sense of systems and organisms, though the batik techniques of the Javanese/Balinese art (an older expression form of pointillism one may say) to even the abstractions of Jackon pollock. In that sense, Fleeting Future connects directly to nature and the wider world in its evocation of perceptive shifts and transitions from microscopic to macro scale. Its hallucinatory, genre-defying blend of minimalism, cosmic jazz and Fourth World influences, and its quest for optimism in the face of unknown and limitless possibility. The mix he has prepared for CLOT is a mix of various pieces of Indonesian music that he finds particularly striking in the way they sound: some good examples of different gamelan ensembles from Java and Bali, both bamboo and gong based; some chants from the Kecak music and dance with its highly percussive quality; some pieces of Genggong which is the Balinese mouth harp: I also threw in a few samples of Indonesian radio stations and field recordings done while in Bali for good measure, and some gongs experimentations recorded at my studio in 2018-2019. We are sure it will make the perfect summer treat for our audiences' ears. Tracklist: All hits music: Radio Sumatra / The Indonesian FM experience Gamelan descending a staircase / Arturas Bumsteinas Radio Java / Radio Republik Indonesia The music of Lombok / Ratu Radio Java / Radio Republik Indonesia Bali Music From the North-West / Seka Balaganjur - Balaganjuran Radio Java / Radio Solo, Bandung Best World Sounds / Music of Bali - Kecak 2 Bonang Studio / Gong experiments IV Bali field recordings / Sarinbuana - Gong & Rindik Gamelan from Central Java / Genhing Munggang Bonang Studio / Gong experiments VIII Radio Java / Radio Bandung Radio Java / Radio Solo, Bandung Living Art, Sounding Spirit: The Bali Sessions / Gelaga Punhun Living Art, Sounding Spirit: The Bali Sessions / Semara Guna Bonang Studio / Gong experiments IX Radio Java / Radio Solo, Bandung Living Art, Sounding Spirit: The Bali Sessions / Kepandung Sita