Sylvain Rifflet, Steve Reich, AIR: Saturday evening was the divine trilogy of the Radio France Festival!

Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, aka the duo Air (supported by Louis Delorme on drums) turned out to be dazzling. Marc GINOT

The O amphitheater was sold out for a long time for the “AIR play Moon Safari” event. MARC GINOT

During the performance of “Music for 18 musicians”, the aesthetic mood varied subtly. MARC GINOT

The instrumentarium necessary for Steve Reich's piece is already a spectacle in itself! MARC GINOT

The trio formed by Sylvain Rifflet, Bettina Kee and Nicolas Fox played in front of the Château d’O. MARC GINOT

Saxophonist Sylvain Rifflet kicked off an evening in three parts, three worlds! MARC GINOT

Saturday July 13, at the Domaine d’O, in Montpellier, the Nouveau Festival Radio France offered the possibility of combining three different ways of trance: hectic trance with the new trio of saxophonist Sylvain Rifflet , pulsating trance with "Music for 18 musicians" by Steve Reich, soaring trance with the duo AIR who played "Moon safari". Three absolute marvels that we tell you about.

Three rooms, three atmospheres, one same consequence: trance! This Saturday, July 13, the Nouveau Festival Radio France decided to take us very far, very high, very elsewhere. At Domaine d’O, in Montpellier, which is certainly not so far, so high, so elsewhere. But the journey (pronounced "trip") was not terrestrial but astral! With Sylvain Rifflet, Steve Reich and Air for dimensional portals!

The experimental trio of Sylvain Rifflet

The first takeoff is announced from the square in front of the Château d’O, at 7 p.m., while the sun, that bittern, continues to beat like a deaf man. If he weren't so deaf, moreover, deaf, we mean, he would have kindly cooled his reactors a little, our ardor in front of this hallucinatory set enough to make our brains boil. ;nbsp;! In short, saxophonist Sylvain Rifflet presents his new experimental trio whose discographic translation We want stars will arrive in stores (if there are still any) ) on September 13.

For this new repertoire, he has combined the talents of the fantastic keyboardist Bettina Kee (also a singer, also fantastic under the alias Ornette) and the explosive drummer Vincent Taeger (former Poni Hoax, transferred to Tiger Tigre). Weary! The latter suffering from a wrist injury, he had to be replaced at short notice by Nicolas Fox. Joy! This rhythmician, seen behind Médéric Collignon or within  nOx.3, is exceptional: at no point in the concert did he let one suspect that he was not playing; was not a permanent member of Tr ! ple, his hyper-power-trio !

A jazz on the borders of rock and electro

Borrowing from the codes of electronic music and the structures of rock, the trio's jazz works on the rhythmic sample and the melodic loop, both of which can be taken on by the keyboards, synths and other machines mastered by Bettina Kee (who also has the grace to dance while doing so) or by the tenor saxophone, the clarinet and the shruti box handled by Sylvain Rifflet (who also has the elegance of; always being very funny on the microphone). The motif launched, each piece pierces by turning a small hole in our noggin through which it infiltrates the serpent dragon with its libertarian madness. As such, we must here emphasize the dazzling singularity of Rifflet's tenor, capable of slapping like an electric bass, soloing like an overdriven guitar, sobbing like an opera singer, beeping like an aphasic computer… hellip; and of course to speak like a libertarian, even revolutionary saxophone!

The track We want stars not satelites is a funky summit loaded with crazy interactions, like Mothers of invention, between synths and sax. Just like MamaHuhu in which the clarinet seems a tornado above the earthquake of the drums, and the synths, a night streaked with lightning. On For John Surman, a miracle of the moment, the cicadas base their obsessive friction on the electronic motif drawn by Bettina Kee from which Sylvain Rifflet develops a reverberated speech of scintillating lyrical beauty… until a coda which, corresponding to a slight drop in temperature (not so dull, ultimately, the sun), will see the cicadas stop, promised, right on time, their racket! Or maybe it’s that like us, they took off… hellip; We don't have time to ask them, we're expected at another shooting range at 8:30 p.m.!

The crazy instrumentarium of the Links ensemble

The Jean-Claude Carrière Theatre is as full as a control center on a lunar or even Martian mission launch day. In fact, that's pretty much what it's all about: the Links ensemble, led by Rémi Durupt, will perform for the very first time for Montpellier, Music for 18 musicians, a masterpiece by the master of American minimalism Steve Reich. An exceptional event that brings together music lovers who are regulars at the Radio France Festival, fans of repetitive music, lovers of electronic music, hungry for new experiences and all kinds of trendy people.

Four grand pianos at the back of the stage, three marimbas, two xylophones, two clarinets (also playing bass clarinets), a cello, a violin, maracas, four singers and in the middle of it all, a metallophone: even before the first note, the instrumentarium necessary for the cult composition already offers a fascinating spectacle. But its interpretation, how say…

Music for 18 musiciansstarts with a fundamental pulse that will be held throughout by the keyboards in percussion mode and conversely the percussions in keyboard mode (marimbas, xylophones, pianos depending on the sections). A plural pulse, composed of different motifs interpreted by the xylophones, violins, clarinets, voices. The first five minutes are also an opportunity to stage and sound the eleven chords that make up the piece and which will then be worked on individually in each of the twelve sections (the third chord is entitled to two sections – don’t ask us why).

But enough of the details, Music for 18 musicians does not, which does not just defy understanding, but decimates it, and thus oxygenates emotion, purifies it to the point of intoxication of the peaks. In the room, eyes strain, ears widen, jaws are uncombed, hair falls out, brains fry and minds, yes, it's there, minds tear themselves away from the perishable ordinary of their fleshly envelope. And to soar in the midst of an etheric tremor!

A jubilant physical experience

Free to move around, we can then approach the bass clarinets and admire their way of invoking waves of low notes which cross the stage like edge rollers coming to lick the general strike. also contemplate the truly demonic rhythmic precision of the xylophones which, face to face, hold an obsessive pattern, in this way human, without showing the slightest failure (which is nevertheless human: above all, do not sneeze!). We can't believe the fundamental work, and background, and depth, of pianos like marimbas, a passage requiring no less than three operators on one of them. We still appreciate the flexible and inhabited direction, on the verge of going into choreography, of conductor Rémi Durupt (who has the best place, behind the metallophone, for an immersive trip!).

Finally, and above all, we don't allow ourselves an hour to pick on the faces of the musicians, knowing looks and knowing smiles : Music for 18 musiciansis a challenge to perform but a pleasure to play, a joyful pleasure. It’is a contamination of jubilation which circulates through pulsations and vibrations, from the stage to the room, from everyone to each . Listen to it, or like Saturday – this extraordinary privilege –, hearing it, seeing it, experiencing it, it's like magic, oiling the hinges of the doors of perception: afterward, they disappear. open wider, freer, and our relationship with the world to be irremediably, and positively, transformed. The (gigantic) smiles of the audience at the final standing ovation testified to this: afterwards, we were good.

AIR in a magnificent "scene" magnificent

No time to untie the enameled ivory hammock stretched between our two ears until the third and final takeoff, the most anticipated if we are to believe the seniority of its sold out, requests our testimony at 10 p.m.: AIR play Moon Safari. In other words, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoît Dunckel, the most elegant heroes of the French touch, are playing their first album, a masterpiece. bizarre work between trip-hop soaring and retrofuturistic pop, in order and in its entirety. The record was 25 years old last year and sure no one in the audience realized it."In every old man, there is a young person who wonders what happened". We would never imagine that Groucho Marx would come at this moment, we would philosophize the relativity of our past time, finally, that's how it is!

The scenography is splendid, in the purest spatial, post-Kubrickian style, which already marked twenty-six years ago (we can't get used to it, really) the imagery of the lunar safari of the Versailles duo: the musicians and their instruments inhabit a rectangular white room with a mirrored floor, bordered in every direction by cloud machines and highlighted by shooting stars, in both directions. A deceptive immaculate whiteness: this rectangular parallelepiped is nothing but LED screens; throughout the set, it will host splendid and versatile videos. JB Dunckel on keyboards (Moog, Korg and other analog machines), Nicolas Godin on bass and guitars (and a bit of harmonica), and Louis Delorme on drums and antics (when he's not playing, this hairy rhythm player with Lagaffian nonchalance is having fun… and so are we!).

All are dressed in the same white as the Droogies of A Clockwork Orange (Kubrick, again) but there is no question here of a raid of hyper-violence but a flight of ultra-coolness. From the quiet and sensual groove of La femme d’argent to the psychedelic reverie of Voyage de Pénélope, passing through the immense vocoded tubes Sexy boy and Kelly watch the stars, the trio performs everything Moon safari impeccably.

Perhaps a little too much in the eyes (ears) of some but it is precisely through the elegance of its writing and its interpretation that AIR makes us take off (while remaining seated); which the same people may also have regretted but hey!, AIR is not Daft Punk). The duo's notorious lack of craziness is – classily, always – compensated by the stunningly beautiful videos and lighting, but also by the response of its audience (us, that is) reasonably crazy!

An energetic second part

After the short hour necessary for the completion of Moon safari, AIR returned not for encores but the second part of his set, a a little shorter but logically less applied, more relaxed. We remember a magnificent one Cherry blossom girl vanniero-gainsbourienne, a beautiful wink&nbsp ;take a look at the soundtrack of the film Virgin suicides, another masterpiece from the duo (Highschool lover , it seemed to us), as well as two exceptional and super energetic versions of Don’t be light and in the end, Electronic performers, both accompanied by monstrous bass parts by Nicolas Godin.

Our buttocks may have remained glued to the chair but, once again, the essential thing has gone far, but very, very far. Okay, now it's time to go back down. We're not going to lie to you, it's hard!

The AIR concert will be broadcast on France Inter on July 20.