Yves Beupré beavers away in his workshop building a hundred harpsichords. As he hammers and strings and flexes the things he records the sounds of the instruments' birth pangs. Lucky for our ears, he stitches the recordings into acousmatic soundscapes that are mysterious, evocative and plain beautiful.

Empreintes Digitales

Any clot who thinks electroacoustic music has become irredeemably entrenched in the same old gestures and routines should open their ears to this stunning debut from a composer possessed of genius who is going to have a (sur)real challenge surpassing such a masterpiece. This is a richly transporting transparent journey into the guts of the creation process. Images pour from the darkened room into the minds eye of wood and varnish and nails and strings swirling about in a void and accreting magically into a heavenly harpsichord which looms ever larger as I shrink to dust mote size. Boxed inside the vintage contraption, rhythmic structures unfold and coalesce and drone visions of eighteenth century time locks emerge. Historic and modern worlds collide in the computer as small planks become dense forests. And all this without the aid of hallucinogens!

 

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