François Bayle

It's my goal to get the whole INA-GRM Musicdisc/Magison/whatever-the-fuck-the-label-is Bayle series! I'm missing Vol. 11 and everything from Vol. 13 on.

Top picks so far would have to be Vol 5/6, the 2cd L'Experience Acoustique, Vol 1 Erosphere, and Vol 12 Morceaux de Ciels/Theatre d'Ombres.

Milton, did you ever find another copy of Erosphere? I recall you mentioned seeking that one on that 'seeking records' thread a few weeks back. I would have offered at the time but, uh, I'm a little behind fulfulling a couple ILX0r trades. But I could do it for you if you need it.

if you're new to him:

http://www.magison.org/ (in french)
http://www.discogs.com/artist/Fran%E7ois+Bayle
http://www.cdemusic.org/store/cde_search.cfm?keywords=fbaylecds
http://emfinstitute.emf.org/exhibits/acousmonium.html
http://www.forcedexposure.com/bin/search.pl?search_string=bayle&searchfield=artist

As I recall, it's a three-part work? So, the INA-GRM cd has the 2nd (Tremblement de Terre tres doux) and 3rd (Toupie dans le Ciel) parts. And I guess the old LP had the 1st and 3rd parts? But that it's also a different recording of the third part to the one on the CD? Ah, it's all so confusing.

It would be a good starting place for people dipping their toe, as it has a cool guest spot from Robert Wyatt (they do a musique-concrete "cover" of a Soft Machine song- and it's great!).

Plus this record has actual recordings of May '68 unrest on it.

the original version is about five minutes longer and more epic that the fragmented edit he ended up including as part of L'experience Acoustique

x-post yeah tracking the Erosphere cycle is a mess.

the original album has "La Fin Du Bruit" (Part One) on side one and "Toupie dans le ciel" on side two.

the CD drops "La Fin Du Bruit", adds "Tremblement", and has a complete remix of "Toupie".

a very different, condensed remix of "La Fin Du Bruit" appears on the CD Main Vide, and the original LP mix of "Toupie" is now a CD EP... argh.

but all the pieces share some of the same brief-burst sparkly square wave patterns as source material, they're all linked, hopefully the whole Erosphere can come out in an integral edition at some point.

He's playing two shows with Parmegiani in San Francisco on March 4th and 5th at the Compound.

He's playing two shows with Parmegiani in San Francisco on March 4th and 5th at the Compound.

!!!??!?!?!??!?!?#@!!

http://www.festivalmnm.ca/mnm.e/2005/0502mnm02.05.html

Francis Dhomont...now he's great!

http://www.magison.org/concerts/index.htm

you lucky bastards

please tell me someone's going who can post back

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/hearandnow/pip/olthc/

the rest of the program is all the kind of hi-fi concrete that's almost pointless to listen to over a 33 kbps stream, though the interviews are fun and I can tell how amazing the concert must have been.

I liked Ryo Co's last solo album, she's my favorite of the three younger Lappetites. & there was a Hecker concert in SF last month that was really incredible. can't wait for the true followup to Sun Pandamonium.

this whole 2 hour program has had me thinking about how a lot of abstract electronic music depends entirely on high fidelity playback to have an impact. the Radigue and the Hecker just barely survive the mp3 compression, that stuff demands a subwoofer & loud playback, but even in lo-fi Bayle's most delicate, perishable sounds still gel together as amazing music

he really is a master. I would easily put erosphere in a list of the top 5 pieces of electronic music of all time (if only because it was the first major work utilizing realtime DSP transformation, but also just because it's such addictive listening, I must have played this hundreds of times by now -- if you like industrial or drone, the more abstract moments of SAWII, or electronic music, period, this album is _the one_

I heard Erosphere for the first time last week and it's blowing my mind. I'm not sure what that statement means, but I'd sure like to know.

in the mid 70's computers finally became fast enough for basic synthesis and some sound processing (pitch shifting, delays, eq's). the SYTER system devised by INA GRM in France was one of the first computers fast enough to respond to controls fast enough to allow for a real time performance. not too much information online, but it evidently was a modular programming environment with an ergonomic control surface.

Bayle's Erosphere was the first major work recorded using SYTER, and one of the first (if not the first) pieces using digital signal processing that has an audibly live mixed flow to its sounds, it sounds 'performed', but it also just sounds mindblowingly gorgeous, key early digital music, the sounds are so much more crystalline, strange and pure than the consumer level rackmount digital delays and pitch shifters that arrived on the market soon after.

knowing how it was made is 3% of the appeal, though, it's a major classic of electronic music with wide appeal that hasn't quite found its place yet. everyone I play it for asks for a copy, this is one of those records I've probably listened to over a thousand times over the last twenty years

http://www.furious.com/Perfect/ohm/inagrm.html

let me rephrase this; digital music started in the late 50's -- I love all the breakthrough pieces by James Tenney, Lejaren Hiller, Jean-Claude Risset and John Chowning (& more), but Erosphere is where things went into overdrive, a new mature (i.e. accessible) phase

This is what appealed to me about it, its sonic depth, my ears really locked on to the clear sound and motion and the first 28 minute track unspooled in a flash. I hear a lot of computer music and noise and stuff, and my ears are kind of jaded, but this just had a huge impact. I mean even next to something like Tod Dockstader (who I like a lot).

How it's made is a small portion of the appeal, you're right. Always nice to know though.

I have no idea how Bayle was 'playing' this music, I've never seen the SYTER system so don't know how it was used, there's a lot of assumptions in my paragraph above, but I can still hear what's going on in the piece

http://www.l-m-c.org.uk/

The LP version of Erosphere went up on Avant Garde Project today. Thanks to Milton, who I noticed encouraging AGP to do this on another board.

One question. If I want to sequence this like the LP, once I buy the Erosphere CD (I assume the INA-GRM version, not the Magison version, correct?) which track do I rip and where do I plug it on the playlist? Discogs is only confusing me on this.

this is only going to confuse you, it confuses me. but it's worth it, I've listened to this recording more than any other piece of music I know

AGP's omission of 'Toupie dans le ciel' from that download is frustrating, because the album mix is actually slightly different than the versions on CD. also the only version in print, the Magison CDEP, is missing about four minutes of music, so even if you buy that and put it in the playlist (between 'la fin du bruit' and 'eros noir'), there's a fade that will disrupt the flow.

the INA-GRM Erosphere CD contains all of side two of the LP, split across five tracks -- the mix differences are subtle, but interesting, anyway, geek out:

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/Sprad/Bayle_Erosphere.jpg

also, total egg on my face: my upthread post about how Erosphere was created using SYTER: I could not have been more wrong. let's just say that most information on this piece is in french, and I couldn't read through the babelfish, but closer reading of the liner notes in volume three of the Archives GRM box was able to set me straight -- the source materials of Erosphere were created with computer processing, but not in realtime, and then the piece itself was livemixed. So the flow does feel 'live', but SYTER came later -- the computer transformations themselves were not navigated in real time.

Thanks for the information! The INA-GRM CD is on its way, but I guess I won't be able to mark the LP off my "to buy" list just yet. Unfortunately it seems to be on everyone else's list as well.

Is the Dolor Del Estamago release that Discogs mentions still available anywhere, or was that strictly through their website?

parts of the LP one hardly even look like the same piece

I'm sure you can still order the Dolor Del Estamago edition from the website, even though it's not specifically mentioned. (that edition = a clone of my vinyl transfer I handed to the label owner I while back)

waveforms can be decieving -- LP version was obviously mixed from the same multitrack, same structure, but different dynamics & subtly different balances between low end and high end, and 'Toupie' is all about the low end. If you listen on computer speakers you are missing about half of the piece, the infinite gyre is all sub sub bass

Erosphere is my name for that membrane of nerves which surrounds of world with its network of waves modulating into an infinite number of frequencies; that cloud of infra- and supersensible heat radiating from megabillions of biological sources; that ring where the force of this cosmos of desire circulates.

We live within the erosphere and desire is ouor destiny.

Audible vibrations are part of the continuum of that general vibrational state ranging from the very low frequency pulsation - for example the cycle of a human life - to the extremely hot and excessively dangerous rays of cosmic space.

The geometrical laws which surge together like waves on a wind-tossed sea - in the vibrational field, the laws of the octaves, the genesis of the harmonics, tonalities, phases - all have an intense existence in the narrow travelling band of frequencies our ear discerns.

To express the generality of these laws, to make them felt musically, is the dream - or the delirium - which mobilized me in EROSPHERE. Simply to make it felt.

For example, - by violently contracting or expanding masses of sound events (playing back acoustic images at speeded-up or slowed-down rates);
- distorting groups of frequencies on the computer by playing them through comb filters consisting of hundreds of fine teeth;
- making acoustic imprints of bodies on surfaces (comparable to Max Ernst's frottages or some of Yves Klein's pictures);
- producing reverberations which synthesize virtual spaces.

..let us explore the erosphere a little further..

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/Sprad/Erosphere.jpg

The Dolor Del Estamago version is on its way to me now. The Magison EP of "Toupie dans le ciel" plugged in between the tracks AGP released has been what I've listened to most in 2008 so I'm excited to hear the fade up without interruption You get some idea from the way I've been doing it but unfortunately even with the extra track AGP released you get a repeat of the fade up and still miss out on the full length of the track.

I wonder what became of the spheres in the pictures Milton posted. Still at the INA-GRM studio?

they became bose speakers

The spheres in the upper right of that collection of photos posted above are in the INA/GRM studios. Specifically, in Studio B of Cellule 16 on the first floor. Not to be all LOST HIGHWAY "I'm inside your house right now" but I am in the INA/GRM studios this week and I can see them. There's some amazing old gear in the basement level too; we dug out this abandoned EMS vocoder that is huge and weird and sounds pretty sweet.

Also, to keep the focus on Bayle, I'm pretty sure that he was in the audience at this Pierre Henry live diffusion at the Cité de la Musique last week- his hairline is pretty distinctive.

is m@tm0s (or one of its incarnations) playing in paris this week?

speaking of the cité, pierre laurent-aimard playing beethoven/scriabin/nono tomorrow is one hot ticket!

Yeah, we're playing as part of the Presences Electroniques festival, it runs Thursday thru Sunday. We play Saturday night, and Francois Bayle himself will start that evening off with a live diffusion of one of his pieces, and Pierre Jodlowski and Colleen also play that night. Plus it's all free, I'm pretty sure (check the INA/GRM website tho, dunno the time; last year it was free and I think it is this year too). The whole festival lineup looks pretty rad this year, there's Maja Rajtke and Kaffe Matthews and Al Margolis (If, Bwana guy) and Aki Onda and and a Z'ev/Chris Watson/KK Null trio plus diffusions of concrete pieces by Schaeffer and Risset and others.

cool. i'll be there. here's a .pdf of the program if anyone's interested.

i love it that everyone else in the program lists their hometown, their influences, their albums and awards, their philosophy.. and the matmos bio is just your names and a gigantic list of all the sounds you've sampled haha

Looks like the Bayle piece this year is Toupie dans le ciel. Let me know how it is if either of you catch it. Here I am waiting on CDr bootlegs and you get to see it live.

Looks like the Bayle piece this year is Toupie dans le ciel.

gaaah

$2,004
2 flights
$2,538
11 flights
$2,778
3 flights
$3,069
4 flights
$3,126
2 flights
$3,168
6 flights
$3,274
8 flights

hmmm

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3164/2362743834_b77d5f6b09.jpg
Martin took this picture today. Beholder is used to show scale.
Apparently they are not used anymore. But they are still here!

Milton, you really should come here to this festival (Martin says so too), it's pretty righteous. You would totally love the studio here. Also: will you tour with us on the West Coast?

Beholder is used to show scale.

hahaha, rad.

Francois Bayle
Frequency: Very Rare
No. Appearing:1
Armor Class 0/2/7
Move:3"
Hit Dice:45-77 hit points
% in lair:80%
Treasure Type: I,S,T
No. of Attacks:1
Damage/Attack:2-8
Special Attacks:Magic
Special Defense:Anti Magic Ray
Magic Resisistance:Special
Intelligence:Exceptional
Alignment:Lawful Evil
Size:4'-6'diameter
Psionic Ability:Nil

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v646/bunchoffives/fberosphere.jpg

DDE artwork starting to make more sense to me.

xpost well I imagine I would love the studios at GRM & yes of course -- I'm homebound this week recording with MaryClare before she leaves, & Dominique's Maybeck shows are sat / sun, but see if you can finally get Bayle talking about technical details on 'Toupie' if there's a sighting. also tell him fans are holding out for that 'Erosphere' DVD, it's kind of amazing you're getting to hear it spatialized.

anablog has transcribed the rest of the liner notes. that's the AGP transcription they've posted.

Milton you would have really loved his set. His diffusion of "Toupie dan le ciel" was majestic. He sat the mixing desk like a ship's captain piloting the piece forward. It sounded really amazing- he did some very subtle movements of the piece, shifting in and out of balcony speakers, side speakers, and even those little "trees" of speakers mounted inside the audience, but never gimmmicky or joysticky-y at all. Also, unlike other diffusers we saw over the past few weeks in Paris (Jean Claude Risset and Pierre Henry, both also great at what they did but very different style), Bayle never looked down at the faders- he always kept his head erect and facing forward. It was pretty striking. It kind of helped that there were ridicuous red and blue laser-thingies shining from the floor to the ceiling too. Psychedelic and beautiful.

WExcellent. That link isn't working for me but maybe this will?

x-post

i must be out of touch with electro-acoustic slang.. "diffusers"?

guessing it means performing with a spatial sound set-up

Yeah, it's a funny word and sounds mad pretentious but it's what they use for what you're doing when you take a piece and spread it across a multi-speaker environment. Since you're not really "playing" it's not a performance, but since you're not just "playing it back" then you're doing something else, and that gets called "diffusion". I learned that in French slang if something is kind of fake then it is called "Canada Dry" and someone who shall remain nameless was referred to in conversation at the INA/GRM as "the Canada Dry of acousmatic diffusion", which surely ought to be the name of a noize album soon.

i saw the francois bayle set, too. his position at 'the helm,' was commanding and the laserquest set-up was trippy, but i wasn't really a fan of the piece itself. i thought his performance/diffusion was more interesting acoustically than musically. sort of formless and repetitive. this was my first exposure to bayle, though.

the matmos set was incredible, especially the second half. one of the best live shows i've seen, and definitely the first time a visual component not only seemed justified, but genuinely complementary to the music. bravo, congrats, etc.

*blushes*

For us the major mindblower of the night was meeting Pi3rre Scha3ffer's widow and talking with her about him and about musique concrete. Madam3 Schaeff3r was fabulous!

On the Bayle tip, diff. strokes for diff folks but I think the piece is supposed to lull you into a trance with that repetitive organ-like riff (made on the SYTER) and then kind of temporarily tweek or pinch you and then lull you again- it's a deliberate move, I think. I thought those plane-like noises and vocal garblings were so satisfying.

ok that makes sense, just wasn't familiar with the term

Piot Kamler - Coeur de Secours (1973)

music by bayle

thanks for that, I didn't know

the ones with parmegiani are ludicrous -- http://www.ubu.com/film/kamler.html

two screenshots from the new DVD which plays back in tandem with a new visual score derived from spectrogram analyses

http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/Sprad/BayleScore1.png
http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a6/Sprad/BayleScore2.png

those are from the Erosphere DVD - which is different once again than the LP mixes ('La fin du bruit' is now 17 minutes instead of 28, and he used the shorter version of 'Toupie' without the 'Eros Noir' bookends he added for the original LP version). I miss the crazier places the LP version got to go to when it enjoyed it's own side of a record, but once I listened to this new DVD all the way through I had to admit this shorter version probably works better now as the middle movement of a non-stop suite.

the Diabolus in Musica DVD is great too -- lots of little excerpts of Bayle's music accompanied by flowery (very very French) descriptions of Bayle's techniques by Jean-Christophe Thomas. I already have all the CDs being excerpted, but listening to peak 30-90 second excerpts from across the entire body of work really brings out both the variety and the consistency, I might burn myself an audio CD of just the excerpts

listening to (a rip of) the CD version of EROSPHERE, loud, on pretty gd speakers, sounds amazing - some of the little ping-pongy sounds remind me of parmegiani

Can't work out why no one is talking about this: http://boutique.ina.fr/cd/musique/electroacoustique/PDTINA001804/francois-bayle-50-ans-d-acousmatique.fr.html

neither can I! thanks for sounding the alarm

there are previously unreleased pieces on CDs 14/15:

Univers nerveux (in memoriam K. Stockhausen) 22'23
L'Oreille étonnée (in memoriam O. Messiaen) 14'58
Rien n'est réel (inédit) 25'30
Déplacements (inédit) 15'30

Several of the classic pieces appear in new condensed edits. The version of Erosphere is the same 68 minute edit from the 2009 DVD. I don't know if I'd be tempted to get this because I already own every single one of the CDs, but... this is a staggering release, putting all of this in one place, at least half of it is some of the best electronic music ever created, and if he vanishes a bit into auto-pilot GRM-Tools plug-in ambiences in the second half, even then the only person he's really ripping off is himself

http://www.electrocd.com/en/cat/ina_g_6033/

I guess 'Arc pour Gérard Grisey (8'02)' is also an unreleased piece, I mistakenly thought I'd heard that one before

http://www.inagrm.com/sites/default/files/mini-sites/cd/co/Videos_bayle.html

THANK YOU for the heads-up, Terabytes! And thanks for all the info on this thread, Milton! It's $88 (Canadian) at Electrocd; shipped to the USA at the current conversion rate, it came out to around $90 (USA) using PayPal. And, Electrocd still has those massive Luc Ferrari (10 discs, http://www.electrocd.com/en/cat/ina_g_6017/) and Bernard Parmegiani (12 discs, http://www.electrocd.com/en/cat/ina_g_6000/) boxes for $76 (Canadian) each. And "Archives GRM" is a heckuva collection, too: http://www.electrocd.com/en/cat/ina_c_1030/

Yikes...the whole 15-disc set is on Spotify: http://open.spotify.com/album/3hX83qXob0n6rvXYiMLy3r

Weird how Amazon is moving that set on MP3 for $20, iTunes for $45

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tsEdyw0s8c

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/licensed-image?q=tbn:ANd9GcS8mlmdgebUEOogrtVpyT8JOnpJXx9kMQ1dP7uqvZme8DLsfANAHDRVjgRIrFOxtrTF7mNHH5nv2WX-g9k