Akusmi

Akusmi

Terra Incognita

Tonal Union

Cartographers and US multinational technology corporations might think they’ve mapped out most of our big, beautiful blue planet, and yet there’s always more to discover if you know where to look. French-born, London-based composer and musician Pascal Bideau takes this as his central premise on a new album of intrepid sonic exploration that delights in the sensation of being somewhere you’ve never been before. ‘Terra Incognita’ invites us to seven faraway sonic imaginariums fusing global and spiritual jazz with life affirming minimalism into a hypnotic, polyrhythmic odyssey. This time, the albums’ sound palette is more vibrant, earthy and abundant, drawing inspiration from the radiating optimism and high-energy sources heard in Afrobeat, Highlife and Electronic Afro-pop music, sounding looser, free and primarily interested in raw sensations. Antithetical to the precise ostinatos and gamelan patterns of the acclaimed debut ‘Fleeting Future’ (2022) and ‘Lines’ (2023). Terra Incognita, then, is a hybrid blend of traditional music and modern electronics, a trip into the unknown that ambulates freely, taking pleasure in its repetitions and never staying still. Bideau suggests this unmarked territory could be as much a fantasyland as it is a transportive journey into the inner self. “It’s probably the feeling I love the most in life,” enthuses Pascal. “It pushes you into a state of wonder and naivety that brings you back to how everything felt when you were a child.” He’s talking about dépaysement, a French word that literally translates as “uncountryfication” but has no English equivalent. “It’s the sensation you...

Akusmi

Fleeting Future

Tonal Union

Akusmi is the new project moniker of French-born, London based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Pascal Bideau, who signs to the new Tonal Union imprint for the release of his album ‘Fleeting Future.’ With its hallucinatory, genre-defying blend of minimalism, cosmic jazz and Fourth World influences, and in its quest for optimism in the face of unknown and limitless possibility. ‘Fleeting Future’ stands apart as an inventive and inspirational debut. The creation of the album’s richly colourful and multi-layered sound world was originally inspired by Bideau’s journey to Indonesia, where he immersed himself in traditional Gamelan and gong music. Many of the themes, motifs and melodies on ‘Fleeting Future’ seed from the ‘Slendro’ scale, one of the essential tuning systems used in Gamelan. However it is not musical scales, but scales as in the size or extent of things that most fascinates Bideau, specifically he explains; “the compelling way things dramatically change when you shift from any given scale to another.” The album connects directly to nature and the wider world in its evocation of perceptive shifts and transitions from microscopic to macro scale, as evidenced by the opening title track ‘Fleeting Future’, on which a simple dotted saxophone line morphs and billows into synths, brass and strings, indicating the musical voyage that lies ahead. Like the start of a journey or adventure it is full of anticipation, its arborescent growth conveying the optimism of the unknown and of limitless possibility. The album centrepiece ‘Neo Tokyo’ is a vibrating, ebullient...

Akusmi

Lines

Tonal Union

London based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Akusmi presents Lines, an exhilarating new collection of works born from the desire to take where the acclaimed debut album Fleeting Future left off—in search of new forms. Formed with a sense of urgency and a reductive approach, Lines is almost entirely comprised of alto saxophone, clarinet and piano, with embellishments of ambience and minimal percussive elements. Recorded in full at his home studio in London, Pascal Bideau speaks about the process: “I wanted to go a bit more horizontal and ambient, work with layers of lines, might they be dotted or straight, and leave them to unfold and see where they would take me.” “Secant” is the electrifying and cinematic opener, emerging with the main motif deriving from the recording sessions of Fleeting Future. It’s distinct sound echoes New York, a homage in part to the works of Steve Reich and inspired also by train travels across the English countryside. Rhythmical looping pianos unite with shifting strings that build to a symphony of hypnotic rich layers, towards a euphoric and filmic climax. “Oblique,” on the other hand is otherworldly and hopeful, a breathtaking musical meeting between jazz and ambient minimalist music. Rich layered saxophones sound a patterned melody, meshed with dotted piano, swirling electronics and percussive hits, before deep-diving into shimmering ambient tones echoing like summer rainfall against windows. Akusmi uniquely finds the spaces in between experimental, crossover classical and ambient music. “Parallel” is the ambient companion to the acclaimed title track...