Rêves sonores - Crépuscule (2021)

Blooming from the shadows comes Crépuscule, the sophomore full-length album by ambient artists Nick Schofield and Stefan Christoff, collaboratively creating as Rêves sonores. Tracked and spliced together over a number of recording sessions, Crépuscule is a collaged tone poem depicting a night wandering through Montreal’s fabled Jardin du Crépuscule (Twilight Garden) in Mile End. Schofield and Christoff’s collection of works find movement in the night, reconstructing improvisations into eleven illuminating classically tinged compositions.

As a concept, Rêves sonores centers around the basic premise of a moderated musical dialogue; it provides a platform for inspired improvisation to interact with contemporary classical compositions, all of which are reinforced with experimental electronic techniques.

Their first collaboration, titled Rêves sonores à Montréal (2015), saw Schofield reworking a set of Christoff’s impressionistic solo piano recordings, using basic tools of musique concrete and synthesis to fundamentally reframe the emotive characteristics of his partner’s work. The result, as described by Tiny Mixtapes, was “a collection of tender ambient vignettes.”

Schofield and Christoff theorized the next phase of their Rêves sonores project and how their efforts could scale into something more communal. They began to experiment with incorporating collaborators in concert, featuring guest improvisers like Joseph Shabason, Thanya Iyer, Mika Posen, and Adam Kinner.

Continuing to pursue the ensemble angle, the conception of Crépsucule began with a recording session in New York in 2015. Schofield spent a day documenting Devin Brahja Waldman improvising on saxophone and Christoff on a Steinway grand piano. The most compelling loops from this session were then brought to violinist Ari Swan who provided gestural melodies sweeping across Christoff and Waldman’s freeform meditations. In turn, Schofield took these materials to the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity in Alberta, where he began his in-depth production, recording vintage synthesizers and collaging each composition into existence. The album’s final stage was handled back home in Montreal where Schofield studied every moment of Crépuscule, deftly editing the instruments to create the semblance of an orchestrated ensemble performing in unison. At last, the album was mixed with esteemed engineer and artist Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (Jerusalem In My Heart) at Hotel2Tango studio. Schofield and Moumneh strived to convey a mix of lucidity and reverie, a play of shadows, a trick of light - perfectly capturing the eccentric sculptures of the Twilight Garden.

Crépuscule seeks to find an intersection in the unconscious where imagination, intrigue, and expression co-exist. Through the process of assembling and broadening artistic company comes creative configuration, a place where Rêves sonores assumes its true form.