Benjamin Thigpen

Flux pairs two large works by Benjamin Thigpen, both commissioned by the Ina-GRM and developed over several years in Sweden and France: at the Visby International Centre for Composers, at EMS in Stockholm and at the GRM in Paris. Conceived for 5 and 5.2 channels, they are presented here in stereo versions made by the composer. Each is a suite of movements, four for still and three for pulse, and each opens with a line from Taoist writing.

still (2007-09), headed by a verse from Lao Tzu, is about stillness in movement: attention fixed on a single point, stability within an endless flow. All its sounds are recordings of common objects used without transformation, with only equalization, compression and reverberation applied. The complete work premiered in 2012 in the GRM's Multiphonies series.

pulse (2010-15) goes the opposite way in its sources: every sound comes from a Buchla 200 modular analog synthesizer. Under a line from Zhuang Zhou, it presents small fragments of a pulsating universe, arising and subsiding, with images of clouds, leaves in the wind, waves and the changing colours of the northern sun. It premiered at the Présences électronique festival at the Centquatre in Paris in 2015. Christian Zanési and the staff of the Swedish studios are thanked for both pieces.

Born in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1959 and naturalized French, Thigpen came back to music through electronic composition after studying literature and aesthetics. He has taught computer music at Ircam and now teaches at the Conservatoire royal de Mons, and performs in the duo Rust with Jean-François Laporte. For him, music is not a language but “a lived visceral experience”.

CD in OGpak, empreintes DIGITALes IMED 17144, 2017.