Songs is the much-anticipated follow-up to Parisian sound designer and musician Sébastien Roux’s beautiful cd Pillow (Apestaartje, 2004). The simple title of Songs hides a deep work that Roux states is based in mathematics, symmetry (and assymetry) and organized randomness. Songs is a skillfully and beautifully rendered album of gentle and sometimes not-so-gentle acoustic instruments and melodic granular clouds. Each song is titled simply by the instruments that make it, thus stressing the process involved in their production. From the ubiquitous guitars, piano, and drums to the more exotic metallophone, harp and contrabass, Roux combines these acoustic instruments with digital sounds and makes a point to keep the focus on the instruments themselves, allowing for their subtleties and idiosyncrasies to come to the forefront.
Roux’s music is personal and multi-faceted; From warm and drowsy ambient tones to digital fests of errors and erratic rhythms to a more song-structured approach hinting at a distant relative of submereged pop music. His influences include musique concrete, folk songs, and electronic music and his work at IRCAM in Paris wraps his ecclectic tastes into an expertly produced work of digital sound that does not rely on one particular sound or motif but rather highlights a breadth of processes and unique sonic juxtaposititons.
