CD - Kalerne
Born in France, but living and operating in Taiwan since 2007, Yannick Dauby experiments with field recordings, frequently assembling them with sounds emitted by found objects and adding more recordings which are sometimes the result of unusual acoustic or natural phenomena (Dauby, appropriately, is very involved in ethnology and science and often collaborates with naturalists on community projects in Taiwan, in Hakka or in certain aboriginal villages). His works are "phonographies", edited elements extrapolated from travels and explorations, in the form of a hyper-vivid audio-documentary, fragments of environments and situations which strongly evoke spaces and frequencies. "Taî-pak thia© sa© piàn" is made of three different tracks, compositions designed in 2008, 2009 and 2011 and written in the city of Taipei and its surroundings, an imaginative journey somewhere between the ancient and the contemporary. We encounter primeval forces, but they are diluted in the evolution of the modern, in the fibrillations between the folds and the fringes of a metropolis, where nature still maintains some kind of strength, mixing jumps and vibrations, involving people, atypical environments and urban situations. The opportunity to put together sounds and create imaginative superimpositions is a perceptive action resulting from the sensitivity and talent of the artist, who gives us a strong narration, alternating the sounds of insects, fireworks, samples extrapolated from the audio emissions of moving vehicles and recordings taken in a subway. In addition to its technical skill, this album resounds with suggestive musical practices, and this is what really captures the listener – a form of alien knowledge, be it of a psychological, aesthetic, social or cultural imprinting.
Aurelio Cianciotta