Terre de Songe was composed for a special INA GRM event held on January 28, 2018, at the request of Daniel Teruggi, former director of the GRM, to mark his departure.
The piece features a reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s Dream-Land, in Stéphane Mallarmé’s French translation, performed by actor Stéphane Olivié Bisson.
This work is a variation on my earlier composition Dream-Land (Important Records), now expanded through the presence of the spoken word. In the tradition of GRM’s acousmatic works — such as Bernard Parmegiani’s L’Enfer or Guy Reibel’s Suite pour Edgar Poe — the piece explores a mysterious, perhaps imaginary land, at the edge of human perception.
A lone traveler moves through shadowed landscapes, “Out of space – Out of time.” This Earth evokes solitude, purgatory, and introspection. Its arid expanse draws a vertiginous map of memory, forgotten figures, and an idol named Night.
The EMS Synthi sculpts this territory in sound — its brightness, sharp attacks, and deep bass responding to Poe’s haunting imagery: “Mountains toppling evermore into seas without a shore.”
The composition ends with a field recording made in midwinter on a stormy, deserted beach in the French Landes region.
Credits
Photograph: Todd Hido
Graphic design: João Castro / The Royal Studio
Released on Sonorum