Made entirely
from old children's records. The artist went every week to Parisian
garage sales to collect all the classic children's tales he could
find such as, Little Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.
At home, he edited out all the dialogue, leaving only the sound
effects, songs, little bells and angry screams between the cracks.
Therefore Xavier tells the same tales not through words but through
sounds. He has not picked the sounds himself, he simply let the
original sounds remain in an isolated form. This opens a dialogue
of word versus sound. When the voice of the narrator comes up in
a recording, it swallows up all the other sounds with his or her
authoritarian
parental voice. So, this project is highlighting the "background"
sounds taking away authority. Because when a story is told through
words, sound and image, as usually happens with kid's records, the
voice takes over the narration:
If you take out the image and the sounds you still have a tale,
but what happens if you take away the voice and the images?
The result is funny
and seemingly illogical. It is slightly confusing but open. What
remains are the hits, the falls and the punches which give you a
stronger sense of violence. Also remaining are the beautiful piano
tunes and wind blowing: sounds that offer a stronger picture of
a princess sleeping than the words.
Why did he choose
to put several stories to make only one piece? It could have been
a time issue, since only one tale would have lasted 2 minutes, a
very short CD. (His next CD is about this long, so he wasnt worried
about length.) He could have assembled a few versions of the same
tale. I am sure you can find several variations of "The Beauty
and the Beast" in Parisian markets.
If he chose to place so many classic tales together, it seems to
me he was thinking about how spoken records operate, and going even
further, how classic tales work. They all have the same values and
premises; beauty, good, love, good versus evil and punishment for
the bad. Likewise children's records have the simple qualities brought
by beautiful songs, love songs, screams and yells.
This CD brings
(maybe unintentionally) a dialogue of artist versus musician. For
an artist to edit the narrator's voice out of children's tales is
a valid option that could without hesitation lead to a finished
piece of art. This of course would only work within the frame of
conceptual art, but being myself a victim of conceptual art preaching,
I find this option valid. But a musician, in my mind, would have
to think of composition more. Because he would logically want the
piece to sound like "music". Perhaps making both the intellectual
decision and formal musical choices would have helped this CD reach
a balance between "art" and "music".
A French musique
concrete master told Aeron that a musician should compose second
by second. That is, that every second should be there for a reason.
I don't know if I agree with this science, but I think this is something
to consider.
An artist, depending
on the school of thought that he<she may be coming from, pays
attention to the ideas and reflections that come through the work
and its impact on people.
Therefore I believe
this work is done from an "artist" perception and not
from a "musician" way of thinking. Not that this matters
so much.
more information
about this work (follow the links to catalogue Xavier Gautier):