Mathias Delplanque - Ô Seuil (2022)

Seven years after «Drachen», Minds Travels Series invites you to discover the new album by Mathias Delplanque from Nantes: «Ô Seuil». Expert in sound landscapes, Mathias Delplanque is above all a multi-faceted artist: electronic music composer, performer, improviser, sound installation designer, sound creator for dance and theatre... All these hats have allowed him to multiply his musical journeys and to perpetually evolve his creative process.

It has been said that he creates «pieces that are both prospective and introspective, sophisticated and simple to access, in the heart of which it is good to move and be moved» (Mouvement). A meticulous composer of atmospheric works that he sees as «oceans of sound», Mathias Delplanque is also known for his excursions into dub techno (the Lena project), as well as for his collaborations with various musicians using traditional instruments: the Korean E’Joung-Ju (geomungo player in the Keda duo), or the Nazairian François Robin (veuze, duduk and mizmar player in the L’Ombre de la Bête duo).

This diversity of projects does not prevent him from revealing a musical path of great consistency. This sixteenth album under his birth name, in more than twenty years of career, demonstrates once again that the man from Nantes is a skilful, curious and passionate creator.

«Ô Seuil» was conceived as a direct follow-up to «Drachen» (his previous solo album, released in 2015 on Mind Travels). The same
taste for powerfully immersive sound pieces, based on electronically processed acoustic instruments, can be found here. The album is an exhibition of constantly changing sound paintings, alternately simple and complex, constantly oscillating between light and shadow. Mathias Delplanque continues to develop his matierist approach to sound, which he carves, hollows out, cuts and models endlessly, like a composite sculpture.

But this new album differs from the previous one in many ways. First of all, it marks the return of rhythm in Mathias Delplanque’s work, through the use of a wide range of percussive instruments: dafs, gongs, cymbals, drums, metal percussion... Seuil 3 and Seuil 6 present all the aspects of a trance music, strongly inspired by various Middle Eastern musical traditions. Threshold 8 evokes some of the timbres and rhythms of Southeast Asian music. The other tracks regularly draw on the slowness and heaviness of doom metal drums.

Brighter than its predecessor, «Ô Seuil» presents a new melodic character and an enriched harmonic work. The instrumentarium has been broadened: bass, guitars, hurdy-gurdy, veuze... to which analogical synthesizers respond, trying to sound like acoustic
instruments.

The tracks (and the album itself) carry a strong narrative charge and are similar to winding tales, whose endings always seem unpredictable. Despite the extremely meticulous production, the accidental is the best part. A profuse work, « Ô Seuil » does not deny its author’s taste for «symphonic» electronic music, which plays on contrasts: bluesy or raging, static or agitated, chaotic or orderly..