New album : “Anabasis”

New album on Jazzdor series, released on August, 20th 2021.

Dominique Pifarély | violin, compo
Valentin Ceccaldi | cello
Sylvaine Hélary | flutes
Matthieu Metzger | soprano and alto saxs
François Corneloup | baritone saxophone
Antonin Rayon | piano and tronics
François Merville | drums
Bruno Ducret | cello

The figure of the poet Paul Celan hover over the tracks of this record. It’s because Dominique Pifarély is studying his work, his art of counterpoint in his writing, and the dreams which never ceased to inhabit his movement as an exile from the earth and from the language.

The anabasis is an expedition from a coastline up into the interior of a country but it’s also the rise of the spirit towards the sacred mountain, the celestial world. It can be initiatory, shamanic, and sometime cathartic.

The deep blow and the scansion which inhabits the work, its special prosody beloved by Celan, find all their sense through the power of evocation, the emotional permeability, the capacity to accept what comes from beyond the codes, and the capacity of empathy which can create the encounter, almost the fusion, the feeling of sharing the same moment with enough force to enable the magic within the music.

When the music escapes from the body and the mind of the musician and when it’s received by the spectator-listener, a sort of auditory and visual alchemy often (or never) operates and creates a third body, this time invisible. A suspended body, fed from both lives of the musician and the listener, from the hope made of unexpected and expected. It’s as if this third body, almost celestial, undoubtedly poetic, decided to exist by itself, away from all constraints, and hypothetically built from the desire to be united in the same instant. 1+1=3.

Compositions by Dominique PifarélyRecorded on September 23, 24 and 25, 2020 by Christophe Hauser at Studio Sextan, Malakoff
Assisted by Arthur Gouret, Loïs Burnouf and Ambroise Helmlinger
Mixing and mastering : Christophe Hauser at Studio Post-Billig
Production : Archipels-Cie Dominique Pifarély in coproduction with Jazzdor
Executive producer : Philippe Ochem

 

New quartet album : “Nocturnes”

Released on April, 19th 2021 on Clean Feed Records*.

Any new recording by French violinist Dominique Pifarély is good news. Being his quartet with Antonin Rayon,Bruno Chevillon and François Merville his more enduring band, this former companion of the also French reedist Louis Sclavis benefits from the maturity of this project, gained through the years, but also from an attitude of always reinventing itself, going to places that we not explored before. Interesting would be to compare this “Nocturnes” with “Tracé Provisoire”, the album recorded by the Dominique Pifarély Quartet for ECM. If this previous one had the undistinguishable mark of Manfred Eicher’s production, the first evidence of  difference when listening to “Nocturnes” is in Sound. More is to come, even if there’s similar poetic atmospheres and, as a composer (and particularly brilliant at that task), Pifarély continues to put his writing at the service of the collective and of their improvisational work, be it the ensemble or the individual solos. Besides the pleasure these four exceptional instrumentalists give to our ears, the way in which the composed and the improvised intermingles in this collection of pieces is a very strong factor of enthusiasm.

All compositions by Dominique Pifarély except 1, 5 by Dominique Pifarély and Antonin Rayon and 6, 8 by Dominique Pifarély and Bruno Chevillon

Recorded on Dec. 5-6-7, 2017 by Gérard de Haro, assisted by Anaëlle Marsollier, at Studio La Buissonne (France) Mixed by Gérard de Haro on Sept. 7-8, 2020 | Mastered by Nicolas Baillard, Studio La Buissonne
Produced by Virginie Crouail / Archipels-Cie Dominique Pifarély | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Design by Travassos | Cover photo by Ricardo Leiria | Photos by Jean-Baptiste Millot