Orgone Percussion Ensemble
Perspectives in Percussions for the XXI century I
FRANCE FIBRR FIBRRPIP01 3 x CD (2025)
From our good friend Julien Ottavi of Nantes (France) comes this substantial collection of contemporary percussion music, some composed by himself or his partner Jenny Picket, others emerging as joint compositions…as with many Ottavi endeavours, Orgone Ensemble is a highly collaborative and inclusive venture, and all types of musicians are free to take part in it. “This ensemble welcomes professionals, amateurs, and beginners alike,” is their motto, and the aim is to introduce new ways of producing music to these eager minds, including methods such as graphic scores or free improvisation. The recordings here have been accumulating since 2015 – and in fact the enterprise has been going since 2013. I get the impression this set is just a representative sample and I wouldn’t be surprised if Ottavi and Co have achieved, and recorded, a good deal more. Think of his Radio Noise Ensemble, or the great computer orchestra, just two examples of his large-scaled participations which blur all sorts of edges between sound, music, noise and performance, redrawing boundaries where possible and proposing new maps of the world.
Three pieces on CD 1, starting with ‘Il Y A de La Soupe Dans Mes Cheveux’, composed by Pickett and featuring bass and voice elements in among the dreamy, floaty sounds; a slow and slightly mysterious episode, perhaps generating steely clouds from bowed cymbals and such. ‘Tactil’ by Ottavi is scored for “percussion and pseudo-AI’, indicating that even in 2016 Julien Ottavi was aware of the forthcoming developments in this area of IT (and he’s probably not in favour of it). Electronics or digital methods may, I suppose, be discerned in this long-form piece, which projects a palpable sense of doubt and ambiguity. Nathalie Plantin, Jean Grimault, Gabriel Vogel and Romain Papion joined Jenny and Julien to produce this queasy nightmare. Already it’s clear that our assumptions about how percussion “ought” to sound are being put to the test – it feels like noises are being coaxed from objects with a gentle wrenching or stroking action, often resulting in very alien effects. Although the title of this 3-CD set may invoke the classic “Silver Series” of avant-garde LPs on the Philips label in the 1960s (Prospective 21e Siècle), the music so far is a long way from Les Percussions De Strasbourg. Even more challenging to received wisdom is ‘Automated Drummer plays Orgone’s percussion’; this 2017 event was performed by motorised machines, with no human performers at all. One has visions of robots on wheels or caterpillar tracks crawling all over the battery of instruments. Almost instantly these “mindless ones” create a thick metallic drone with insistent overtones floating over a root note. Their actions, and positioning, might be the result of careful planning, or might represent a complete relinquishment of normal musicianly control. Oddly enough it’s the most full-bodied noise on this disc.
Disc two leads off with the mighty roar of ‘Poussière de métal’ composed for “symphonic tamtams and wind gongs”. The title put me in mind of Élevage De Poussière, the small French label which happens to release the output of Dustbreeders, fellow French noise types, but I expect it’s just a coincidence; except I do sense here that Ottavi is shooting for the kind of inchoate, formless sea of sound which he summons in such incarnations as Harsh Noise Consortium (part of the APO33 Association). Individual identities are swamped in this undulating swell of silvery metal; no space here for “professional” players exhibiting their conservatoire skills, when there’s a collective job to be done. 30:10 minutes of this glorious metal monument await you; even Stockhausen would not have dared to use his beloved tam-tams in such a bold setting. This piece is followed by ‘Orgone Play Rhythmajik’, indeed a highly-charged and ritualistic piece that’s guaranteed to stir your cabbalistic spirits. The booklet speaks warmly of the time they encountered Z’EV, the famed American percussionist who took a very radical and inventive approach to percussion, both in terms of performance and materials. I hadn’t realised he was living in Nantes at the time, going through the process of applying for a visa. He gave this composition to Orgone in 2013; it grew over several years to become the piece we hear here, recorded as late as 2021. It was able to grow, I suppose, because Z’EV’s offering wasn’t so much a “score” as a series of open-ended instructions and cues, which allowed for multiple versions and interpretations. The French creators praise Z’EV’s “subtle, airy, and deeply phrased” techniques, recordings of which are planned for future release in this series. Z’EV also bequeathed his percussion collection to APO33 and Orgone, which resulted in the Rhythmajik residency at Nantes and the continuation of the legacy of this singular man. It’s reassuring to know the instruments are being preserved, and that they’re seeing further use, much like the Harry Partch instruments.
‘Musique d’échauffement’ by Ottavi starts Disc 3, and as title indicates it’s fuelled by the heat of passion…as with the gongs piece, the performances of Plantin, Grimault, Vogel and Papion blend into a massive sound – the accumulated effect is like a herd of stampeding wild beasts. Very good! There follow three pieces described as “collective compositions” and credited to (I think) Orgone Percussions Ensemble and Burundi Drummers Ikiyago Legacy. Some moments in these 2015 recordings are positively eerie, dripping with tension and silence; these pieces alone would make perfect sense allied to the Strange Strings recordings of the Sun Ra Arkestra, which I mention just to remind myself how important percussion was to that group as well. But there’s also volume and violence, bordering on terror. The set ends with ‘Spheres Fondantes’, scored for crotales and electronics by Ottavi, and quite a miniature in comparison with many of the large-scaled ambitious pieces in the set. It’s also a studio recording, while most of this release feels like it was captured live on stage. Read the enclosed booklet for this generous set to learn more about the history of Orgone and the “non-hierarchical approach” that is being fostered, plus some inspiring mini-essays about the future of avant-garde music, what it means to compose percussion pieces in the 12st century, the democracy of performance that percussion encourages (anyone can play), and why “every culture has a connection to percussion”. I see I got through this review without once delving into the mystical world of Wilhelm Reich, but I’ll leave that subject for more dedicated followers. From 13 May 2025.