« le recueil enregistré par Sophie Agnel (qu’on connaissait jusqu’ici dans des duos et trios) enchante : les nappes onoriques que la pianiste génère, « à bras le cadre », emportent doucement (à la manière des paysages électroniques mouvants d’un Lawrence Casserley) et vous garantissent des hallucination, méditations et peintures mentales très exitantes. Etrangement, la musique ne semble pas dénaturée par le passage au disque ‘auditivement, elle captive tant qu’on craindrait presque d’être décpncentré à la vue des préparations-baguettes, boules, mailloches- qui réinventent l’instrument) ;gamelans et kotos dans leurs ressacs, pour de délicats zappings poétiques.On est impressionné par la retenue qui dose et contient l’énergie de ce jeu interieur d’intérieur de piano, par le goût exquis (pas si fréquent dans le donaine du piano préparé qui fait sombrer certains dans un cluster-mania confinant à l’hystérie) qui permet d’éviter écueils et monotonie.Procurez vous absolument ce disque sompteux, qui semble inépuisable, et dont on oublie la relative brièveté (45 minutes) tant il dilate finement et expose fixement le temps, faisant ressentir et habiter ses durées et anamorphoses. » Guillaume tarche

« On ne peut être plus précis. Sophie Agnel, seule, au piano, improvise. Un piano préparé, sur les cordes duquel sont posés des objets, ul piano do,t les mécaniques, les résonnances de la main sue le bois, les parties métalliques, le moindre recoin est utilisé pour annoncer la musique.Car dans un genre qui a son lot de successions de bruits sonores sans grand intêret, Sophie Agnel privilégie des mélodies-certes pas toutes à siffloter au premier jet mais clairement énonc ées-des atmosphères, une organisation subtile de mouvements qui se démarque du rituel tension-détente épuisé par l’improvisation.En associant des formes courtes (Petite phalène, Ma main me fait des signes, Gratter…)à des évolutions plus étendues(begayer…)sans perdre en énergie rentrée et en concentration.La prise de son de François Dietz au studion du centre André Malraux ; sène nationale de Vandoeuvre les nancy, détaille le moindre son, juqu’au frôlement. » S.Si, le monde 10 nov 2000

« Ce disque peut apparaître comme une pause, dans le contexte d’un parcours musical riche en rencontres et aventures, de Sonny Murray à Dominique Regef, en passant par Hélène Labarrière, Guillaume Orti mais aussi Michel Doneda, Michaël Nick, Hélène Breschand, Thierry Madiot ou Erik M...

Solitaire, comme forcément le sont les pianistes face à leur terrible machine (tant de cordes et de touches...), face à l’histoire tellement chargée de moments essentiels et de monstres sacrés, Sophie Agnel a réussi avec ce solo un parcours poétique bien au-delà de l’exposition du savoir faire. Ce disque est un moment de sons retrouvés.Quelque chose de nécessaire dans notre espace saturé. » DISQUE D’EMOI (JAZZ MAGAZINE)

« Sophie Agnel achieved a poetic trip, beyond an exhibition of savoir-faire."Solo" is her first solo piano recording and this format remains the best to hear all the tracks to the next, the more she abandons the keybord to concentrate on the bowels of the beast, placing objects on the strings, playing strings, even the wood structure. »

Sur scène, la plongée onirique (paradoxalement si lente et si rapide) à laquelle invite ce duo est captivante ; qu’en garde le disque ? Le surgissement assurément diffère mais les perceptions de l’auditeur sont intactes – bien qu’une fois enregistrées, elles semblent amenées plus abruptement qu’en concert où elles sourdent avec une étonnante sensualité.

Quatre grandes feuilles d’ardoise (de quinze minutes chacune), fort contrastées, conservent la trace des brutes fractales et subtiles ramifications créées par Sophie Agnel (piano) et Olivier Benoit (guitare) – inutile de compulser vos anthologies : aucune référence aux couples Taylor & Bailey, Tilbury & Rowe, Maroney & Tammen (ces deux derniers prétendent jouer de l’hyperpiano et de l’endangered guitar) ne sera à brandir ; ici, le piano (intégral, dirait Nam June Paik) est un long monocoque sensible et crissant, un portique couché à fourrager, un métier à tisser sur lequel Agnel pousse des bois flottés ; la guitare, une baratte à sons méconnaissables, un chariot que Benoit frotte sur les rails d’un complexe portuaire.

La pochette stipule que l’une joue du " piano, mécanique " et l’autre de la " guitare, électricité "… il semble que la précision apportée à deux reprises par le second terme soit plus didactique que poétique : la sculpture de Caroline Pouzolles photographiée sur la couverture suffit grandement : comme de la limaille (Noël Tachet ne parlait-il pas d’oxycoupage à propos de la musique d’OB ? !) agglomérée par ce phénomène électrique que l’on obtient par frottement mécanique… – notons encore que la plasticienne est partie prenante, avec Benoit et Guionnet, du projet interdisciplinaire Météo qui mêle musique, danse, sculpture in vivo et retraitements divers en direct.

L’audition de ce disque aux rêches vibrions, pour qui veut bien s’y engager, n’est pas gratuite ; elle est véritable expérience (ou participation, aimerait-on dire – la tension partagée " entre eux et nous " crée un suspense d’une nouvelle nature) et aventure disposée à l’inouï dans le courageux sillage de cette musique. C’est très passionnant, voilà tout !

Repères phonographiques : # Sophie Agnel [Solo, Vand’Œuvre 0019 ; Rouge Gris Bruit, avec Marchetti et Noetinger, Potlatch P 401], # Olivier Benoit [&Un, avec Guionnet, Vand’Œuvre 0223], tous distribués par Improjazz. Signalons au passage les deux prochaines productions du label In Situ : Mechanique(s) Trio (Tammen, Naphtali, Speicher) et Hardscrabble Songs (Malcolm Goldstein et Quatuor Bozzini).

Guillaume Tarche - improjazz - février 2004

"A CONTRARIO DES PRESTATIONS SCENIQUES DE CERTAINS GROUPES DE ROCK, qui n’ont souvent de finalité que la promotion d’opus studio, les disques de musique improvisée sont avant tout un témoignage d’une performance. Dès la première écoute « en aveugle » de cet enregistrement se révèle alors la très grande complicité des sons. Plus qu’un duo, une entité. Sophie Agnel et Olivier Benoit unissent leurs talents. Leurs instruments, étendus plus que préparés, se rejoignent harmonieusement. Olivier Benoit, bien connu sur Lille comme conducteur/dompteur de la Pieuvre, ce surprenant ensemble d’improvisation de 27 musiciens, et Sophie Agnel, à l’expérience déjà grande (duo avec Phil Minton, trio avec Lionel Marchetti et Jérôme Noetinger, etc.) propulsent, dans les deux morceaux intimistes comme dans les deux morceaux plus brutaux qu’ils encadrent, cette matière sonore à l’origine déconstruite vers une autre dimension mélodique et hypersensible. Loin des poncifs et exercices de style nombreux et stériles, leur disque rejoint dans ma playlist 2003 cet autre magnifique duo guitare/piano qu’est le Duo for Doris de Keith Rowe et John Tilbury"

Frédérick Baas - DDO # 39 - Janvier 2004

« Sophie Agnel (piano, mécanique), Olivier Benoit (guitare, électricité) : plutôt que l’instrument traditionnel, ce sont les notions secondaires qu’il faut retenir ici – mécanique et électricité. Pour le duo, la musique semble avant tout émaner d’une mise en onde des corps, de leurs frottements et résonances, dans la quête d’une matière sonore en mutation permanente. En quatre pièces, la parole se noue dans l’amas des textures, transgressant l’idée de narration. Une approche singulièrement hors du phrasé du piano (moins dans les notes que dans les cordes ou le cadre) comme de la guitare (émetteur à l’énergie bruitiste). Ce qui se donne à entendre est avant tout une rencontre à nu, un art brut de l’improvisation accueillant toutes les aspérités et parasites du son. Dans la tension de l’écoute, le duo apprivoise le silence comme rarement (même s’il n’évite pas parfois le piège du refuge) pour construire pas à pas une sculpture de l’éphémère. L’œuvre de Caroline Pouzolles reproduite en couverture de ce « Rip-Stop » en dit toute la fragilité, mais aussi la beauté intrigante ».

Thierry Lepin -Jazzman - février 2004 - **** Jazzman

"In Situ, geleitet vom Cellisten Didier Petit (Denis Colin Trio), pflegt die französische Impro-Tradition im Brückenschlag von Pionieren wie Francois Tusques ("1965, Free Jazz") über die 80er Jahre (Jac Berrocal, Michel Doneda, Daunik Lazro, Joelle Léandre, Lê Quan Ninh, Un Drame Musical Instantané, Carlos Zingaro) bis zur aktuellen Generation der unter 40-jährigen. Der Gitarrist Benoit, geboren 1969, und die Pianistin Agnel, Jahrgang 1964, beide in Paris zu Hause, spielen ihre so mit Blues & Rock bzw. Romantik vollgesaugten Instrumente nach deren Paradigmenwechsel zur Geräuschquelle. Darin wird nicht nur ein Materialfortschritt deutlich, sondern auch ein Bewusstseinswandel. Der Umbruch vom Instrument zum Tool und vom Ton zu Sound, Noise und vor allem Stille, besser Tonlosigkeit, impliziert nicht nur eine gewandelte soziale Rolle von Musik und denen, die sie machen. Auch die Hörer, vor allem die Hörer, sind mit der neuen Situation konfrontiert, dass Musik nicht mehr die vertraute Quelle von Entspannung und Erbauung ist, eher ein sich in den Furchen duckender Hase, der, aufgescheucht, Haken schlagend entschwindet. "rip-stop" führt weit hinein in eine augenlose Welt, ganz hingegeben dem Pianissimo, der Lautlosigkeit, dem Mikroschock, des vorsichtigen Weitertastens, als Höhlenforscher, als Bewusstseinsgeflacker in Beckett’scher Lessness. Und plötzlich rutscht man weg in ein minutenlanges Crescendo. Um abermals zu enden. Und erneut im bruitistisch Diffusen zu stöchern, erneut mitzuschwirren im kakophonen Clash zweier Noiseschwärme, die wieder auseinanderreißen zu einem knackenden, dunkel rumorenden Gespinst. Was Agnel und Benoit da praktizieren, ist der konsequente Abbau von allem außer dem Unerwarteten."

Rigo Dittmann - Bad Alchemy - 2004

La pochette prend soin de souligner le caractère mécanique ou électrique de chacun des deux instruments en présence. Comme si la source sonore importait peu, comme si la symbiose ici réalisée (avec quelques dispositifs et ustensiles complémentaires) dépassait le poids historique de ces deux outils manufacturés spécifiques ayant pour point commun, au fond, d’assembler des cordes pour les faire résonner le mieux possible. Car c’est bien de cette alchimie mystérieuse dont il est question ici au cœur d’une association dont les deux protagonistes multiplient par ailleurs les collaborations. « Traquer dans les entrailles de toute machine les ressources absentes de la notice d’utilisation », écrit Dominique Répécaud. Jouant sur la retenue et une sorte d’énergie froide (comme on parle de colère froide), aux confins du murmure et de l’intériorité, cette étrange machinerie invente nappes et grondements énigmatiques qui s’entrelacent, se répondent et se rejoignent. Mécanismes furtivement percussifs, brumeux ou cristallins, mais rarement le processus sort de ses gonds. Il arrive que l’on qualifie cette musique d’ « expérimentale », il est en tout cas réjouissant que ces (jeunes) musiciens, issus du jazz (c’est à dire ayant traversé une période de fascination pour ses figures essentielles), soient aujourd’hui à l’origine d’une poésie indéfinissable et singulière, d’une musique nouvelle et fraîche qui ne se rattache à aucun modèle. C’est précisément la pertinence de cette constellation d’individualités fortes qui est le plus attachant aujourd’hui dans cette mouvance dite de l’improvisation libre (comme jadis dans le monde du jazz) où la notion de calque est bannie et même simplement impensable.

Gérard Rouy - Disque d’émoi - Jazz Magazine N°547 - avril 2004

DENMAN MARONEY Fluxations New World # 80607 SOPHIE AGNEL/OLIVIER BENOIT Rip-stop IN SITU IS 237

Orchestral and monochordal at different times, the piano is the cornerstone of Western music because of its versatility. But this versatility sometimes limits its adaptability to more experimental music. Over the second half of the 20th century composers and pianists decided that one way to overcome the keyboard’s innate conventionality was to prepare the strings with different objects. These two CDs — one American and one French — show how these preparations can be used in the context of improvised music. Each is vastly different. American Denman Maroney’s quintet is strongly allied to jazz, whereas the Parisian duo of pianist Sophie Agnel and guitarist Olivier Benoit leans towards free music and electronics. Over the course of RIP-STOP’s four instant compositions Agnel and Benoit don ’t so much play their instruments as extract sounds from them. The textures and patterns created owe more to what the copper, wire and steel strings of the two chordal sources are capable of than conventional playing. Both musicians have long been involved with similar experiments. The pianist has been part of bands featuring Lionel Marchetti on tapes and electronics and Jerome Noetinger on electroacoustic devices, as well as other formations with saxophonist Michel Doneda or harpist Hélène Breschand. For his part, Benoit has been in formations that range from his duo with alto saxophonist Jean-Luc Guionnet to his conduction of the 25-member Grand orchestre d’ improvisation. As early as "rs-1", resonating plinks from within the piano and oscillating accordion-like tones from the guitarist’s reverb pedal extend the instruments’ tonal fields. Soon rolling, repetitive piano chords and scratching, buzzing fills give way to what appears to be objects pressed against the strings. These quiet internal rumbles are met by near-inaudible guitar resonation and string strikes and lead to almost complete silence. Mechanized flat picking, together with scatter shot clinking on guitar strings alternate with fist-smashing bangs on the fall board plus low frequency chording on "rs-2", the CD’s longest track. With the piano dampers muted, mechanical sounding textures appear, followed by right-handed vibrations from the keyboard itself. While this is going on, Benoit produces whistling timbres and note crackles that eventually coalesce into faint grasshopper chirps. Agnel’s response tops these teeny guitar clips with miniscule, single notes resonation that move inside and around the key frame and which are extended with pinpoint pedal pressure. "Rs-3" is more percussive on Benoit’s side, with his strumming on his heaviest strings. Slightly off-key note clusters and bell-like sounds from the keys encourage the guitarist to unleash accelerating feedback. Busy, distorted echoes take the piece out. When "rs-4" appears, both musicians almost seem to become part of their chosen instruments. Benoit’s crashing guitar chords turn from shaking near-bottleneck to wood cracking, as if the guitar was being pulled apart piece by piece. For her part Angel appears to be rolling marbles onto the piano strings until her finger pressure drives individual notes deeper into the piano innards. Soon, singular sounds drone against the escapement and soundboard, causing sympathetic vibrations from the other strings. There’s no sign of electronics on FLUXATIONS. Looking at the personnel, in fact, you could imagine that the six-part composition is being played by a standard jazz aggregation of trumpet, reeds, bass, percussion and keys. But the keys here are in the hands of Maroney, the piece’s composer, and manipulated on his "hyperpiano". This involves working the keys with one hand, while bowing, plucking, strumming and striking the strings directly with the other hand using a variety of tools including copper bars, brass bowls, rubber blocks, bells, knives, mallets, plastic mashers, boxes and bottles. Maroney, who has exhibited his skills in duet situations with guitarist Hans Tammen and in many bands with bassist Mark Dresser, has the bassman’s rock-solid time keeping helping here. Ned Rothenberg, who plays alto saxophone and bass clarinet, has collaborated with Japanese musicians in the band R.U.B., and explored all varieties of world and improv music. Drummer and vibist Kevin Norton leads his own bands and works with Anthony Braxton, while trumpeter Dave Ballou has been featured in the bands of Satoko Fujii and Andrew Hill. One of those compositions that oscillates between improvised and written sections, "Fluxations" is just as impressive if you can’t figure out which section comes from Maroney’s pen and which is made up on the spot by the players. On "Part 4" for instance, after a drum roll brings the trumpet-led melody forward, brass shrills and bent notes presage a double tremolo of uneven piano note clusters. Rothenberg introduces a series of descending slurs that are then mirrored by the keyboard with a metal bowl pressed against the strings to produce ringing harshness. Next up is a whinnying horn line and plucked bass tones. Finally the pianist creates a nasal-sounding ending by sliding down the strings ponticello. "Part 3", at nearly 13-minutes gives the pianist plenty of scope to explore his instrument with two different touches. One is a double striding, harpsichord-like texture that gets faster and more diffuse as he jumps from one key tone to another and ends with a faint right-handed ruffle. The other evidentially takes place completely in the strings’ speaking length. Meanwhile, Maroney doubles the pulse fields with definite stopped action, Ballou responds with a muted trumpet wiggle and Dresser with a bowed bass line. Soon that line intersects with hocketing piano sounds and vibraharp shimmers. The bassist turns to stretches and scrapes, the vibist to resonating, four-mallet tones and the pianist literally strums his instrument’s inside strings. On the other hand, the theme from "Part 2" is carried by pseudo steel guitar riffs from the piano as Norton — on drums — plays a careful shuffle rhythm and Rothenberg contributes sliding glissandos. Ballou then introduces a brassy, joyous trill that wouldn’t be out of place in a Mahler lieder. Eventually, Maroney pushes his keys so hard that the output move from doubled regular piano tone to stretched textures that could come from an African lute. When all the rhythmic and harmonic possibilities have been explored the two-minute coda of "Part 6" is a contrapuntal exercise in opposing tones from the trumpet and alto saxophone, as the pianist chimes metronomic chords behind them. Two digs into the inner workings of the piano from two different countries show that revolutionary timbres are still available from this Western World’ s most traditional instrument.

By Ken Waxman - Musiworks (Canada) - www.jazzword.com - 04 novembre 2006

In Situ is a Paris-based label documenting different zones of musical activity in contemporary jazz and free improvisation. ‘Rip – Stop’ features the deep listening interactions of Sophie Agnel on piano and devices, and Olivier Benoit on guitar and electricity. This is excellent free music in the tradition of AMM, a generally pulse-less series of solid mirages that seem to emerge up out of the earth and linger close to the surface, almost subliminally, before sinking back into the background noise of the everyday. The musicians play as a singular entity and generate sound from multiple points across their instruments. Rumbling drones and percussive scrapes provide a plateau of scapes on which any number of textural manipulations and interjections occur. Silence is the central canvas for these sounds, etched with a calm and deliberate hand. The balance between the familiar timbres of piano and guitar, and a multitude of noises of more dubious origin, make for a listening experience that suggests a protean nether world where the known and unknown coexist. Four assemblages of roughly equal length drift across divergent zones of volume and slow-motion turbulence. Each joins the other to form a block of sound that is impressive in its simplicity and beautiful in its quality. Those who appreciate AMM’s tectonic universe are strongly encouraged to lend an ear to this younger duo’s obvious ability to listen together, explore sound, extend their instruments and create music of humble integrity. Listen to the sound of time dissolving here.

Reviews by Matt Krieg - Kami’s blogsite : www.jazzfromhellproductions.blogspot.com - juillet 2005

"Utilisant un piano et une guitare, Sophie Agnel et Olivier Benoit proposent une musique qui tient plus de la sculpture du son et des arts plastiques que de la composition harmonique. Ils se donnent à fond pour tirer des sons de leurs instruments sans passer par les chemins académiques. C’est une musique qui se vit, qui nous envahit et qui vibre jusqu’au plus profond de vous-même. Elle gronde, éclate puis ruisselle en mille gouttes pour rejaillir de nouveau et vous emmener dans ses délires".

X - La voix du nord - dimanche 08 février 2004

Some CDs can’t be enjoyed in certain environments. Take ’Rip-Stop’ for instance. This is piano-guitar music that is simply too damn quiet, too serene and ultimately too detail oriented to be enjoyed anywhere, except for a sound-proof room. To be fair, the CD can actually be listened to in other locations, as long as these locations are not prone to foreign sound sources from the outside world. The piano-guitar duo has been done time and again, so why is it that this one deserves our attention ? For one, Sophie Agnel’s piano work is stunning in its precision, as much as its subtlety. Fact is, she spends the majority of the hour long CD strumming the inside of her instrument. Her caresses are like a lover’s tongue ’ they tease your ear ever so gently. She applies gentle pressure when needed and then holds back until you’re simply screaming and begging for more. Oliver Benoit takes a similar approach to his electric guitar. He strums the strings gently. So light is his touch that for the most part you won’t even recognize the instrument as such. Enough modification was done to ensure the listener is taken aback with the new and different sounds that can emanate from the guitar. Coming back to importance of hearing this music with no outside interference, the first two tracks are so hushed that you’ll ultimately end up turning up the volume knob so far to the right searching for the music that is all too subtle. It’s so understated in fact, you’ll wonder if there’s any music there. That’s not to say that the duo is not capable of kicking out the jams. In fact, when the need arises [as it does at the tail end of ’rs-4’], Sophie and Olivier create a high-pitched sound feast for the senses, complete with copious amounts of feedback and powerful strokes on the keys. Call this electroacoustic music at its best. Call this a display of sparseness. ’Rip-Stop’ is nothing short of an addictive feast for the ears.

Tom Sekowski - (Poland) website (Polish/English) : gaz-eta - Août 2005 - > NR 33 - LIPIEC 2005)

‘’Rip-Stop’’ est actuellement l’un des quatre ou cinq albums de musique improvisée les plus passionnants de 2003 (avec : le duo Derek Bailey et Franz Hautzinger sur le label Grob, Frédéric Blondy et Lê Quan Ninh sur Potlatch et le collectif Hubbub sur Matchless), le genre de disque qui non seulement supporte, mais appelle à la réécoute’’.

Albert Pin (Something Else)

"Agnel-Benoit are a piano and guitar duo whose measured and mature improvisations cannot fail to bring to mind the classicism of AMM’s John Tilbury and Keith Rowe. There’s a poetic purity of intent on display here, a willingness to engage with their instruments in both conventional and unorthodox ways, ranging from the fragile single note droplets of the opening section to the percussive tangles and gentle but insistent metallic abrasiveness of prepared instruments in the later stages. Agnel’s soft, upper register flurries and cascades bring Keith Tippett to mind, while Benoit’s wity textures and finely tuned sense of tension suggest solo Fred Frith. It’s mostly very quiet, but beautifully recorded."

Keith Moliné - The Wire - # 241

English :

"It was thirty years ago that the release of Guitar Solos by Fred Frith (a very good album, by the way) brought to the fore a way of making music (and a whole world) that up to that moment had been situated outside the periphery of vision of a mass audience. Simplifying (more than) a little bit, it was just like this that the Baileys, the Parkers and the Mengelbergs suddenly found themselves under the spotlight. And I believe that nobody - not even the musicians themselves - could have predicted nowadays’ rosy situation for an approach that just a few years later was already being talked about as having arrived at the phase of recapitulation - or of empty gestures. On the contrary, some of the "historical" names are still with us, having diversified their approach ; some names that were a bit in the background - say, AMM - are now in the center of people’s consideration ; links to "modern classical" - once upon a time whispered, sometimes rejected - are now quite often the object of essays ; the appearance of the CD player has made possible the public exploration of the "granular" dimension - and laptops being accessible is not a factor to be discarded when thinking about "glitchism" ; while the refusal of the teleological dimension goes hand in hand with the perception of reality as a "liquid" entity (Zygmunt Bauman has written many interesting things about that). There’s only one problem : who pays the bill ? It is in fact extremely funny to notice that while musicians and labels have multiplied, the paying public has dwindled - and speculating about a reversal of the trend doesn’t appear to be rational, since at the same time the old channels (Fripp, Frith, Bailey - or : Coleman, Mitchell, ROVA) have exhausted their possibilities. It would be quite interesting to argue whether links to museums, art galleries and the like have played a bigger part in the (Darwinian) survival of some (extremely difficult, indeed) stylistic (under)currents. A long reasoning that - in a very roundabout way - brings us to Rip-Stop : Sophie Agnel on piano and Olivier Benoit on guitar. I had already had the pleasure of listening to these fine musicians, but never in the present combination. Hoping not to offend the musicians nor their record company, I’ll say that Rip-Stop is made of sounds that any listener willing to devote his/her undivided attention in a very quiet environment (yes, life is not so simple) will consider as being music. The musicians match very well, working together towards a possible outcome - just listen to the repeated single piano note at the end of track one, the false resolution of track two, the percussive exploration of track three and the not banal vivaciousness of track four. Beautiful timbres, prepared instruments".

Italiano :

Giusto trent’anni fa, la pubblicazione dell’album di Fred Frith intitolato Guitar Solos (ottimo album, tra l’altro) portava in primo piano tutto un mo(n)do di fare musica fino a quel momento alla periferia dell’attenzione di massa. Semplificando giusto il necessario, fu essenzialmente così che i Bailey, i Parker e i Mengelberg si ritrovarono da un giorno all’altro sotto la luce dei riflettori. Certo è che nessuno - azzardiamo : neppure i diretti interessati - avrebbe potuto prevedere un così radioso presente per quella musica improvvisata che solo alcuni anni più tardi sarebbe già stata detta in fase di ricapitolazione o giunta pressoché alla maniera. Invece molti tra i nomi storici hanno retto (e diversificato) ; nuovi approcci sono stati tentati ; tra i "classici", nomi inizialmente appannaggio di pochissimi - pensiamo agli AMM - godono adesso di una ben diversa considerazione ; collegamenti con la musica classica contemporanea - prima sussurrati, quando non esplicitamente rifiutati - sono divenuti oggetto di esplicita teorizzazione ; la comparsa del CD ha reso agevole l’esplorazione pubblica del granulare - e l’accessibilità dei laptop non è estranea alla comparsa dei "glitchisti" ; mentre il rifiuto di una dimensione teleologica ben si adatta a una percezione della realtà come "sfuggente" (qui Zygmunt Bauman ha scritto cose molto interessanti). Resta solo un problema : chi paga ? E’ infatti curioso notare che a fronte di un proliferare di musicisti ed etichette il pubblico pagante sembra essere molto scemato, né pare razionale ipotizzare per il futuro un’inversione di tendenza, essendosi nel frattempo asciugati quei canali che (di nuovo, semplificando) facevano : Fripp, Frith, Bailey - oppure : Coleman, Mitchell, ROVA. E sarebbe interessante riflettere - così, a tempo perso - sull’eventualità che collegamenti con musei e gallerie d’arte possano non essere del tutto estranei all’affermazione (in un’accezione darwiniana) di alcune correnti stilistiche di evidentissima osticità. Un discorso che - in maniera decisamente contorta - ci conduce a questo Rip-Stop. Sophie Agnel al pianoforte e Olivier Benoit alla chitarra : due musicisti che avevamo già avuto modo di apprezzare, ma mai nella presente combinazione. E’ un album che - sperando di non offendere i musicisti o l’etichetta - diremmo contenere suoni senz’altro riconoscibili come musica da un ascoltatore non superficiale disposto a prestare attenzione indivisa in un ambiente molto silenzioso (sì, a volte la vita non è semplice). I due dimostrano un’ottima intesa, lavorando di concerto in vista di un possibile risultato - si ascoltino la singola nota ripetuta di pianoforte alla fine del primo brano, la falsa risoluzione del secondo, l’esplorazione percussiva del terzo e la non banale vivacità del quarto. Timbriche di bella inventiva, strumenti preparati.

Beppe Colli

Beppe Colli - CloudsandClocks - March 9, 2004

"Muito se tem dito e escrito sobre a utilização do silêncio nas novas tendências da improvisação livre, assim escamoteando um factor que reputo tão essencial, nas orientações estéticas abraçadas pelo chamado “reducionismo”, quanto a definitiva aplicação dos princípios anunciados por John Cage : a importância do microfone e da amplificação, revelando um mundo sonoro microscópico, interior, que antes passava despercebido e parece estar a continuar os preceitos de outro grande nome da história não oficial da música : Giacinto Scelsi. Deste ponto de vista é, aliás, muito curioso o que se está a passar com os improvisadores,aproximando-os das preocupações de sempre da música concreta - com maior evidência quando se utiliza a electrónica ou gravações de campo, mas mais esclarecedoramente ainda quando as fontes sonoras são os instrumentos acústicos tradicionais. Nunca como agora, de facto, foi possível falar com tanta propriedade de abordagens concretistas da música instrumental, que é o que fazem Burkhard Beins com a percussão, John Butcher, Dirk Marwedel e Stéphane Rives com os saxofones, Axel Dorner com o trompete, Kai Fagaschinski com o clarinete ou Sophie Agnel com o piano. Aliás, são esclaredoras as indicações em « Misiiki », do trio Beins/Marwedel/Vorfeld, de que lá se encontra um “saxofone extensivo”, ou em « Invisible Ear », de Butcher, que refere a acção dos “feedbacks” de sax : trata-se, precisamente, de tipos de utilização dos instrumentos musicais completamente distintos dos ensinados em meio académico. Por isso mesmo, é raro encontrar verdadeiros acordes ou notas nestes cinco discos. Todos os músicos envolvidos preferem as escórias sonoras, a parasitagem acústica, em suma, o ruído, som não domesticado, som rebelde a qualquer tipo de voluntarismo. Agnel manipulando as cordas do piano com uma ventoinha em « Rip-Stop », Rives utilizando saliva em demasia no seu « Fibres », de maneira a que o soprano se transfigure totalmente. O que está em causa passa a ser o grão, o que está “entre-sons”, os “materiais escondidos por detrás do que é imediatamente perceptível” (Stéphane Rives). Quando Butcher recorre à multigravação, já não é com objectivos orquestrais, numa perspectiva estrutural ou mesmo composicional, mas incidindo sobre a própria matéria sonora. E se « No Forniture », do grupo Baltschun/Dorner/Fagaschinski, inclui sampler e computador, é para ainda mais desvirtuar as naturezas e a cultura convencionada dos instrumentos participantes. Estética do silêncio ? Oiça-se a incrível e esmagadora presença do trompete de Dorner - é como se estivéssemos dentro dele, e não diante (seja diante dos altifalantes, quando se ouve o disco em casa, como dos performers, em situação de concerto), ao contrário do que vem sucedendo até agora. Depois deste tipo de propostas, há questões que terão de ser repensadas, como o lugar do ouvinte face ao performer ou os próprios mecanismos da percepção musical..."

Rui Eduardo Paes

With a systematic approach to improvisation that may well define a new subset of music in the continuum stemming from AMM, this new offering from France’s In Situ imprint is as beautiful as it is addictive. The duo of piano and guitar has been done time and again, the possibilities being endless for two instruments capable of multiple octaves, endless single note runs, and every chord under the sun. Agnel and Benoit exploit the lesser explored sonicities inherent in those instruments’ physical construction, adjoining familiar sounds with electronics and mechanical effects. Comparisons to Keith Rowe and John Tilbury are bound to spring up, given the areas Rip-Stop works in, but the likenesses are few in the matters of sound and delivery. The disc’s heaviest moments are laced in Agnel’s sustain pedal and copious reverb from the guitar, the music sounding as if recorded in a moist tunnel. It’s a gorgeous disc and its four long tracks (each over 12 minutes) are diverse, while essentially thematic. Agnel and Benoit are a huge find for anyone needing a break from the usual suspects in improvised music.

bagatellen - record of the week - April 2004

On the cover of Rip-Stop is a sculpture resembling a translucent bale of hay made out of wire, or the world’s biggest steelwool pad. It’s a fitting image for this encounter between two musicians who specialize in coaxing sounds out of metal under tension. The instrumentation - piano and guitar - recalls the AMM-minus-one of Duos for Doris, though Agnel and Benoit’s palette is less colourful ; they are similarly patient improvisers, constructing long improvisations through the patient addition and scraping-away of acoustic layers. Passages of violent activity are comparatively brief ; on the whole, both the white-noise climaxes and the drawn-out near-silences transpire slowly and calmly, like snowdrifts piling up or vapour trails evaporating. Agnel’s piano flecks and dots the dense, overtone-rich haze, on occasion rupturing it but more often just giving it a gentle stir. Despite the album’s wide range in levels of volume and activity, it does come across as somewhat monochrome. It also tends to skirt moments of genuine uncanniness or of poetry, making this a much less rich and strange experience than Rouge Gris Bruit, Agnel’s earlier trio disc with Lionel Marchetti and Jérôme Noetinger on Potlatch. On its own terms, though, Rip-Stop is a successful album, as elegant and astringent as that wire sculpture planted on the art-gallery floor.

Nate Dorward - june 2004 - http://www.paristransatlantic.com/

(...) [21h, 1er concert] Après ce brillant départ sur les starting-blocks de Jazz Migration, deux oiseaux migrateurs de l’improvisation. Ce duo enfanté au Carré Bleu de Bernard Prouteau, et dont chaque membre n’en est pas non plus à son coup d’essai, a rapidement pris son envol et sa venue au festival de Mulhouse ferait presque figure d’événement, tant il a, pour ainsi dire, inventé un son propre et une façon de le traiter rigoureusement personnelle. Contentons-nous donc de préciser que Sophie Agnel joue du piano et Olivier Benoit de la guitare… Et oublions immédiatement ce que nous venons de dire. Car, pour peu que nous ayons fermé les yeux, rien dans ce qui nous parvient ne peut sembler venir d’un quelconque instrument. Tous deux pétrissent plutôt, de leurs mains semblables, une matière, sans doute musicale, qu’ils déposent sur le sol par petites touches impressionnistes puis lui laissent prendre la forme souhaitée par accumulation, succession, sélection naturelle et choix qui s’impose.

En fait, nous n’avons pas affaire ici à deux musiciens, mais à deux plasticiens. Ou, mieux encore, à un seul peintre bicéphale qui travaillerait à l’esquisse d’un paysage unique. C’est peut-être le trajet d’une rivière, que nous suivons depuis sa source, le grondement de son torrent, la plénitude du fleuve et l’ouverture vers la mer. Ce n’est même pas un tableau que nous admirons les yeux clos, mais le cours même de l’eau. L’art de ces deux illusionnistes est trop mouvant pour se laisser figer dans un cadre, fût-il luxueux… Trop fluide également pour imprimer la moindre pellicule. Dans Numéro Deux, Jean-Luc Godard fait dire à un enfant : « Papa, c’est une usine, Maman, un paysage ». Ce piano et cette guitare se situent incontestablement sur le versant féminin de la création artistique… (...)Je ne m’étendrai pas sur le contenu de ces stages, n’y ayant pas participé moi-même, et me contenterai de préciser que le concert des élèves d’Olivier Benoit obéit au principe de conduction qu’il a su expérimenter avec bonheur et depuis déjà pas mal de temps avec les membres du collectif lillois, La Pieuvre.

Joël Pagier - Improjazz - n°119 - octobre 2005

Chaque année, Jazz à Mulhouse nous permet de dresser avec jubilation un bilan (globalement positif) du jazz improvisé et d’y dénicher ses nouvelles tendances libertaires les plus singulières. Ainsi (...) Mais c’est l’âpre et délicate déconstruction minérale de l’association fusionnelle Sophie Agnel (p)-Olivier Benoit (elg) qui allait créer une véritable bataille d’Hernani au sein du public. Une alchimie déconcertante au comble de l’intériorité, de la retenue et de la fragilité, jusqu’aux limites du possible, au bord de la rupture, invoquant scories, sons parasites et microtonalité, frottements crissants et lentes résonances rugueuses, source d’une poésie troublante et vertigineuse.(...) Enfin, au cours du concert de fin de stage de cinq jours qui réunissait une bonne vingtaine de ses stagiaires, Olivier Benoit choisit de présenter la méthode qu’il développe par ailleurs de manière approfondie depuis plusieurs années avec La Pieuvre : la conduction d’orchestre. Bâtie sur un répertoire de signes complexe (Butch Morris ou John Zorn ont aussi, d’une manière fort différente, travaillé dans cette direction), cette méthode expérimentale offre des possibilités quasi-infinies en terme de finesse et de nuances. Les auditeurs qui ont assisté à ce (modeste) concert de fin de stage peuvent en témoigner. (...)

Gérard Rouy - Jazz magazine N° ? -

La musique de Sophie Agnel (p) et Olivier Benoît (gt) exposait après cela un positionnement musical classique. Les premières secondes en révélaient ce qui m’attache avant tout à l’improvisation, une manière de faire vivre le temps avec un trésor d’intensité qui semble avoir été déposé là pour qu’on le découvre. On pense à des rencontres comme celle de Bill Evans et de Jim Hall ; au-delà de tout ce qui les sépare, Agnel et Benoît sont au même niveau de concentration, de beauté, de construction, de complexité et de complémentarité charnelle des deux instruments dans un extrême affinement des nuances. Sans minimiser la part de Sophie Agnel, Olivier Benoît m’a semblé parvenir à une dimension orchestrale qui réalise l’intensité du désir de son à travers la précision du geste.

Noël Tachet - Improjazz N ? - septembre ( ?) 2006

"The piano has been around for 250 years, but in the right hands it can still startle and deliver revelations. CAPSIZING MOMENTS captures an astonishing concert performance by French pianist Sophie Agnel at a venue near Paris last November. Agnel dramatically alters the sound of her instrument by introducing all sorts of unpromising everyday objects into its interior, and she has developed her playing technique accordingly to a very high level of refinement. Like fellow improviser Keith Tippett, she makes these provisional and temporary modifications during the actual performance, rather than establishing fixed preparations in advance in the manner of John Cage. Unlike Tippett, she makes this practice the concentrated core of her playing rather than one option amongst a range of others.

The cover credits ’solo piano with variable preparations but no electronics’, and there are many moments when it scarcely seems credible that Agnel is performing alone and using exclusively acoustic means. Beyond familiar conceptions of the piano as an orchestra in a box or a self-contained percussion ensemble, Agnel approaches it as a truly expansive sound source. Strings are scraped, bowed, plucked and struck ; the casing resonates ; industrial chunter dissolves into a swirling overtone haze ; penetrating shrillness slides into spectral clusters, then resolves in metallic pounding. Crucially it’s not just an expanded conception of the instrument that you hear on this recording but the sound of a skilled musician who has something distinctively her own to say."

JULIAN COWLEY - THE WIRE 2009

"This unedited concert probably represents the official induction to the pantheon of distinguished improvisers for a musician who’s been working just above the clandestine status in spite of having already released consistently important works, notably the excellent TASTING with Phil Minton on Another Timbre. CAPSIZING MOMENTS portrays the austere humanity of an unaided performer : able and willing to expose her convictions and fears without looking back, ready to be accepted or refused, yet not intentioned to loosen the fighting stance regardless of the human frailties revealed by this splendidly irrational substance, born from the alteration of the instrument’s accents via different kinds of inorganic enhancements. The artist calls the apparatus ’extensive piano’ : a machine whose sonic capacity is positively over-standard.

The first movement starts obsessively percussive, making the most of the big box’s lower registers. An initial wall of rumbling tones soiled by an assortment of clattering items is gradually reduced into a series of scantily delivered hits, one or two pitches maximum, echoed by plastic-sounding bouncing and an underlying monochrome pattern that, with eyes closed, we could nearly associate to unclear noises from a remote construction site, or perhaps a chugging motionless boat next to a quay. There’s almost a sense of frustration when intuiting the potential expansion of a castle that’s instead only a ruin, hopelessly exposed when Agnel suddenly decides that the hammering is finished, the corrosion of resonance left alone to do justice to the mysteriously bitter aura of this momentary transformation in an impressive flash of transcendence.

The rasping bowing introduces to a short and striking episode starting with piercing hyper-squeals - picture a bionic version of Hitchcock’s Psycho - instantaneously shut up by a clustery bang. Following a few interlocutory touches, a magnificent arpeggio - interspersed with more dissonant punctuations - is defined by the peculiar reaction of the preparations, a somewhat softer embodiment of Keith Tippett materialising, accompanied by a couple of woodpeckers jabbing a tabla. An irredeemable propensity to harmonic uncertainty is symbolized by Agnel stopping the procedures to start a new scenario of lumpy micro-chords, strings plucked and pounded in increasingly growing rage, a veritable criticism of pianistic savoir-faire.

Five seconds of calmness and we’re at the final and longest chapter. The protagonist looks around as to assess the damage done ; residual ashes still smoking, memories of turbulent action and faded traces of classical-tinged environments rendered useless by the rattling qualities of every attempted profile. This is where indistinctness and lucidity wrestle, not before trying to reach an agreement : the upper partials are contaminated, the zither-like reverberations oxidized, concordance misshapen to the point of utter estrangement. Out of the blue, an acutely jingling reiteration remains solitary for a short while, immediately replaced by tinny sliding objects, isolated knocks and selected picks spotting this absurdly effective nudity. Indeed the sections in which Agnel diminishes the incidence of the ’regular’ piano - a palette prevalently dictated by the contrast between seclusion and instant vision - are possibly the ones who define her greatness, an implacable lust for collapsing archetypal designs kept under strict control by an inner musicality which renders this flux of consciousness akin to a proper composition in countless occasions.

As the performance approaches closure one feels like watching an old animal patiently searching for a place to finally lay its drained body at rest and peacefully expire after many years of life in the wilderness. This compliance with the nature’s laws - particularly the acceptance of an end, in effect the unsolved dilemma of most people’s psyche - is what makes this music stirring. Birth, existence, struggle, survival, ideas, delusions, demise. It’s so obviously wonderful, and CAPSIZING MOMENTS depicts all of this entirely, sensitively. When weak exhalations from the inside imply the piece’s termination, further explanations turn out to be a waste of time."

MASSIMO RICCI - TOUCHING EXTREMES 2009