“Thinking of this release as a duet between Frédéric Blondy and Thomas Lehn misses the mark completely.  First there are the mechanics of the session.  Blondy’s piano was routed in to external input of Lehn’s synth, providing sound sources which were manipulated in real time.  At the same time, the input served as control signals that affected the sound synthesis.  All of which was refracted back out for Blondy to respond to.  Of course the technical setup would be of no consequence if the musicians didn’t connect so well.  Both have extensive experience working in this space.  Blondy is part of the group Hubbub, a quintet that turns two-reed, guitar, piano, and drums instrumentation into a setting for nuanced, chamber-like gradations of micro-details.  And Lehn’s list of collaborations is mind-boggling.  But in each case, he manages to inhabit the sound-space of his partners, from the hyper-kinetic Konk Pack to his participation in Mimeo.

Here, the two musicians mine the electro-acoustic palette of their combined instrument.  While the low resonances and ringing sustain of the piano are filtered and fractured, the essence of the acoustic source is always present.  Likewise, Lehn’s scribbled gestures and jagged textures are picked up by Blondy, with crashing chords, rumbling ostinatos, and percussive work inside the piano.  The first piece was assembled by Lehn in the studio from two performances; the second  piece is a live recording.  Both are built around shadings of voicings and gesture along with the careful balance of dynamics and densities.  Calligraphic electronics dart across piano thunder.  Dark chords are turned in on themselves into roaring shards.  Bright, sparely-voiced notes from the upper octaves are dropped against crackles and scratched synth.  Particularly on the more extended length of the live title piece, the improvisation balances sections of spacious calm with heated squall with a thoughtful sense of overall form.  This new label has been putting out a series of strong releases since its launch in late 2007. This is one of their strongest yet.”          -  Michael Rosenstein, Signal to Noise

 

“Obdo’s two pieces derive from performances at French festivals by pianist Frédéric Blondy and analogue synthesiser player Thomas Lehn.  The bulk of ‘pooq’ was recorded in Bourogne in 2006 and subsequently modified in a process of audio editing that enhanced and added emphasis rather than substantially changing the material.   On stage Blondy’s instrument was routed through Lehn’s synthesiser in a way that allowed reciprocal processing and interference to occur.   The outcome might have been wild, even chaotic, but the duo prefer a highly restrained, subtle, even austere approach.   Sparse, precise tones are tinged with reverb or gently swirled through ring modulation.  Their interactive set-up reminds me of a suggestion  by philosopher Michel Serres, in his musings on hosts and parasites, that something new arises only “by the injection of chance into the rule, by the introduction of law at the heart of disorder”.     The longer title track was performed at the Actes Temporaires festival in Périgueux and received only minor adjustments later.  This piece is  far  less like a cautious tightrope walk; the interaction is far more explicitly dramatic.  Blondy works vigorously with the body of the  piano, case and strings as well as keyboard.     And Lehn is more intrusive, agitated and sometimes squally.  The culmination is explosive.”                                                                           -   Julian Cowley,  The Wire
 

“Thomas Lehn (whom we should remember trained as a pianist) and Frédéric Blondy form a duo of interacting keyboards, wires, strings and filters.   For not only are the piano sounds treated by the synthesiser, but they themselves feed into and affect the synthesis.  The dizzying possibilities of this situation could overwhelm, befuddle or intoxicate the musicians, but happily there’s nothing of that here.   It is a drama of tension, of the play of timbres and spaces opening up landscapes which are diffracted and then shattered by delicate excavations or sudden orchestral squalls.  For the listener this is a passionate journey through lands which rise up and then shift from moment to moment.  On stage too this duo must be quite something.”                                                                                          -   Guillaume Tarche,  Improjazz

 

“Those who know the work of Frédéric Blondy and Thomas Lehn might expect a meeting of the two to be a kind of free-for-all in which speed is the primary parameter.  But they will be surprised.  In this recording there are no lyrical flights of fancy, nor shows of extravagant dexterity, as if both musicians are keen to avoid being caricatured.  What is unique about this recording is the way in which the piano sounds are fed into the analogue synthesiser in such a way that they are not only manipulated but also themselves interfere with the process of synthesis.    And while certainly active, the musicians let these technical processes play themselves out and be heard.   At times they just listen to the (sometimes minute) transformations that they are effecting upon each other.  We are invited not so much to listen to a dialogue as to explore the interior of a third space, the space of that almost immobile moment when the activity necessary for its survival is found in its deepest recesses.  So this music takes time to build up and accumulate structures, which it then tramples down (though without hotheadedness) that same territory where it has become entrenched.  Nonetheless there is a certain disequilibrium between the two musicians, with Thomas Lehn taking the initiative more as regards the sudden ruptures and other surprises which give life to the duo’s music.  This cd will certainly delight all those like me, who love to be surprised by the richness of a soundworld which is both willed into being and allowed to run its course, and also moved by the musicianship of the playing (whether it is fast and furious or not).”            -  Le Quan Ninh, Revue et Corrigée

 

“Thomas Lehn picks up the sounds produced on Blondy’s piano with his 'external input' and thus can do real time processing of the sounds using the filters, reverberation, ring modulation and what else such a machine offers.  There are two pieces, the first and shorter one is an edit of various bits from a concert in Bourogne with a bit of a recording from Montreuil, whilst the second, title, piece is a straight recording from one concert, save for some minor adjustments.  It's interesting to hear what  editing could do here.  In 'Pooq', things are kept highly 'silent' with just a few careful sounds.  It sounds like the music was edited out, certainly  if we compare it to 'Obdo', which is a much fuller piece, if not, at times, a noisy piece.  The piano is scanned for all sorts of sound possibilities, hitting the keys, the body, the strings and together they weave an endless stream of sounds together, a pairing that goes wonderfully well together.     A fine, thought-out work of improvisation.”                                                                                                      -    Frans de Waard,  Vital Weekly

 

“Blondy knocks, hammers and plucks the keys and strings of the piano, while Lehn feeds his synthesiser with these sounds and manipulates  them, though at first rather cautiously.  As if Blondy’s soup was too hot, he carefully blows on it as he ladles it out.   Blondy plays mainly single notes which he sometimes lets vibrate and sometimes dampens.  The 37-minute title track is much busier.  Blondy drags a chain around inside the piano, producing dark thunderous tones over which Lehn lays a delicate pulse of popping, hissing sounds which contrast with Blondy’s tones.  The concept of ‘piano’ has long since been surpassed.  Without any formality Blondy works this relic of bourgeois fancy percussively, noisily and increasingly roughly.  This is not unromantic, if the term ‘romantic’ can include the phantom of the opera and corpses in a cellar.  Lehn’s moog bubbles, trills and farts rather coursely, even while he keeps his little finger ironically raised.  But today who is still embarrassed by or frowns at such things?  We just  carry on our way, and that’s how it should be.”  

                                                                                                                                     -    Rigobert Dittmann, Bad Alchemy

 

“pooq  is composed from a number of recordings made between 2003 and 2006.  Across its thirteen minutes both musicians explore the possibilities of the piano as a total instrument, including of course the use and manipulation of its inside as part of the sonic palette, mixing and transforming its sounds both organically and electronically.  However silence appears as a central element within the piece.  The result is thirteen minutes that achieve moments of almost paradoxical beauty.  In contrast obdo is from the start much more frenetic than pooq.  Howevere at its conclusion the intensity of the duo decreases and it picks up again the tranquil mood of the first track.  Seen in its totality obdo  crerates across its 50 minutes a work which has a symmetry and logic underlying its almost overwhelming unfolding.”

                                                                                                                                     -    José Francisco Tapiz, Tomajazz

 

“The duo of pianist Frédéric Blondy and synth manipulator Thomas Lehn holds a lot of potential.  It's not often that synth is used alongside the piano, which is why I was turned onto this music in an instant.  The fervour inside didn't diminish for a second when I learned the duo didn't simply play their instruments in real time alone.  Both instruments were manipulated to give off the sounds included on this disc.   Piano sounds that Blondy puts across were manipulated by Lehn's analogue synth's modules.  Variety of filters, reverberations and ring modulations were concocted to come up with these rich sounds.  To be fair, sounds of the piano were also used as pinnacle control signals that would budge and affect the sounds originating from the synth.  To that effect, the first piece "Pooq" is the more serene of the two pieces included.   It's as if the musicians were testing the waters, feeling the boundaries.  Though their vision is all encompassing, it's not until we arrive at the thirty  seven minute title track the duo breaks out of its collective shells and things really start to take shape.  Blondy's mostly inside-piano work [tapping on the sides, caressing the strings, moving blocks across strings as well] is key impetus for Lehn to begin his radical work on the synth.  The best sections are those when both musicians emulate a flock of squabbling birds, only to be dispersed with stark strikes of ivory keys accompanied with full-fletched glitch-ophony.  Except for a few minutes of pure synth noise walls, the duo displays a large tendency for subtlety.  It's in the quiet,  contemplative moments, that the radical beauty of "Obdo" is found.”                                             -   Tom Sekowski,  Gaz-eta

 

“The basic method used by  Blondy and Lehn for “Obdo” is feeding the analogue synthesizer’s external input with the audio signal of the piano, thus obtaining what the liners call a “cross-effecting real time sound processing”.  This means that what would normally constitute the typical features of a piano note - attack, sustain, decay, the dampened metallic qualities of the hammer-on-string processes - are heavily disfigured.  OK, not always so massively, but certainly in a most unusual way.  Apparently marginal phenomena, semi-distracted touches or quasi casual hits are captured by the modulating network of Lehn’s machine, portraying the worrying presence of some intruder who creeps behind your relaxed posture with silently threatening attitude, content with letting its blurred image be reflected in the mirror, the listener wide-eyed and open-eared to understand what’s going on. There’s no attempt to our security, though, the music mostly belonging to the “discomfort zone” where the instrumental lexicon privileges morphologies previously unheard of, totally excluding rosiness in favour of jangling impingements and unquiet modifications of the surrounding reality.  The whole remaining on the “subdued” side for large chunks of the album, which only towards the conclusion of the title track brings out a quantity of repressed nervousness, the kind of “boiling inside” rage that ill-minded individuals disguise with affected smiles and fake goodness while intent in unsettling the life of someone perceived as superior to them.  Lehn and Blondy seem to sonically portray exactly that feeling at the end, their conversation finally erupting in harsh contrasts and noisier parallelisms, enough to let us declare this CD as the most “concrete” - at least partially - in the already significant history of Simon Reynell’s imprint.  Fascinating stuff, like in all the other chapters.”       -  Massimo Ricci,  Touching Extremes

 

 

at07     obdo

 

frédéric blondy - piano

thomas lehn - analogue synthesiser

 

1.  pooq          12:47             

2-4.  obdo       37:00

  total time:    49:47

 

 

recorded bourogne, montreuil & périgueux,  2003 - 2006

 

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