Altaplana, world of Francois Schuiten and Benoit Peeters

the impossible & infinite encyclopedia of the world created by Schuiten & Peeters

User Tools

Site Tools


Table of Contents

Urbatectures

Urbatectures is a music album by druc drac & Nebulo, released in 2011. This album is a musical interpretation of the album La Fièvre d'Urbicande by Schuiten and Peeters.

The artists explored various modes of composition to illustrate the universe of the text, using the exquisite corpse technique (rive nord - rive sud), narrative transposition in accordance to the chronological sequence of events found in both the general storyline (urbicande) and specific sequences (les jardins suspendus, le réseau), mathematical composition relating to the evolution of the «network» (polynome), and finally freely inspiring themselves from the world created in the story (brigades urbatecturales, hexaèdre, micromega and sunurb).

The sonic breadth of this release births a hybrid between acousmatic / electro-acoustic music, electronica, ambient and darker industrial. 'the fever of urbicande' was the inspiration for a wide range of clicks and cuts, haunting sound collages, fragile melodies, acoustic piano excursions, powerful synth chords and even impulsive beat sequences reminiscent of experimental technoid pioneers like pan sonic. intricately constructed but also far from any academic sobriety, its cold, distant and captivating feel makes 'urbatectures' an ideal imaginary soundtrack for the mind's projector, and of course a great accompaniment for viewing schuiten's and peeters' works.

See also the booklet that is distributed with the album: booklet

Songs

NumberTitlePreview
1 rive nord - rive sud
2 urbicande
3 les jardins suspendus
4 brigades urbatecturales
5 le réseau
6 polynome
7 hexaèdre
8 micromega
9 sunurb

Artists

nebulo is a french-based electronic music project. since 2006, he has produced a range of audio works at the cross of acousmatic, ambient, noise and electronica for labels like hymen-records, tympanik audio, and impulsive art. on his 1st album kolia, released in 2006, his music has been descibed as „surreal dreamscapes painted with tears and sometimes even blood. the gentle harmony and calm melodies are offset by glitchy percussion and rhythmic labyrinths carefully deconstructed and molded back into one whole.“ (headphone commute). for the 2007’s avutma lp, tokafi reviewed „in presenting this ambiguous world of fiction and fragmentation, all held in check by a fine feel for rhythm and texture, nebulo injects expression and vulnerability into the debris of modernism.“ his last 2010‘s album „artefact“ was evoked as „post-modern artificial symphonies full of asynchronous arrytmia and experimental wandering trips, taking the listener’s hand and leading him into a new world full of desolate landscapes and artificial intelligence entities.“ (connexion bizarre) his work has also included commissions for sound-art installations such as versailles’s 2007 „les grandes eaux nocturnes“.

druc drac a.k.a. françois dumeaux is a french composer who studied acousmatic music composition between 2002 and 2006 in the bordeaux music academy - in christian eloy's class. as a finalist for the acousmatic composition competition métamorphoses 2008, his piece has been released on the métamorphoses 2008 compilation. he was invited to make a composition for bernard parmegiani's 80th birthday. he also produces idm, psytrance, electrodub, ambient and experimental noise music and has done so since 1998. he played live and released records alone and with a number of bands in a number of musical styles (free improvisation, traditional music, electronica, etc.). he also realises radio art, documentaries, sonography for museums and soundtracks for plays and movies.

See more info at http://www.hymen-records.com/all/y797.html

Buy the album

You can buy the album in the iTunes Music store.