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Elaine Mitchener et Mats Gustafsson

free speech

Olivier Lam

“Two breaths, two monsters of innovation.”

Two breaths, two monsters of innovation. Sons d’hiver could not have found more suitable guests for its radio creations than Elaine Mitchener and Mats Gustafsson. Because as different as the Briton and the Swede are in their approach and intensity, one experimental and limitless vocalist, the other athletic saxophonist with dizzying fields of expression, they know how to turn their interpretation into landscapes, like few in improvised music. So both have a blast, each in their own way. The first in a very political piece, in which she confronts the piercing words of Angela Davis or James Baldwin with radio collages on the Black Lives Matter protests in the spring, then her own incandescent vocals. The second in a tumultuous and deep composition, where he doesn’t stop at squealing and clicking the brass, but grabs the organ and electronics, as a subtle reference to the masters of the legendary EMS Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm. Two wonders to listen to with headphones, eyes closed.

Listen to new radio piece The Party’s Over for Sons d’hiver: www.laplateforme-sonsdhiver.org