Alexandre Bazin - Géologie du Timbre (2026)

Conceived as a single continuous work, 'Géologie du Timbre' by French composer, author and radio producer Alexandre Bazin unfolds as a long-form electroacoustic composition in eight movements, conceived within the format of a classical work.

'Géologie du Timbre' explores sound as a sensitive matter, a substance revealed as much through listening as through composition.

The work starts from the idea that timbre is not an attribute but a phenomenon, a shifting relief, a presence that transforms the moment one approaches it. Various sonic layers are set into motion, interacting, rubbing, and transforming one another, gradually unfolding an inner landscape.

Its dramaturgy evolves through micro-events, pressures, resonances, zones of density, and lines of flight, forming a cartography of the sensible in which sound reveals itself through transformation. In the tradition of major electroacoustic works emerging from the history of the GRM, 'Géologie du Timbre' extends a radical attention to timbre, to materiality, and to what deep listening allows to surface.

In this work, the ear functions as much as an instrument as the studio itself, and perception becomes the true site of composition.

The piece is built from a personal “sonothèque”, a library of sounds recorded specifically for this work at the GRM studios (Radio France), using a wide range of acoustic materials, resonant objects and friction-based instruments. Each sound was captured and developed through a process of close listening and electroacoustic transformation.