Working out of her private studio since 2008, Shape platform 2018 artist Berangere Maximin has developed her own approach to sound art and electronic music, composing dense, immersive pieces with immediate impact. On four albums which have aroused international interest, she has revealed a taste for mixing disparate sounds together with a sense of detail, effusive, lyrical playings with the digital material and tight nuanced writing.
Berangere Maximin's music engages the listener in consideration of space and textures. The sound ambivalence and its independence from its original source being at the centre of her work. The composer has got released on Tzadik's Composer Series (USA), Sub Rosa's Framework (BE) and Crammed Discs' Made To Measure (BE). Lately she responded to the producer Craig Leon's invitation to take part in the re-activation of his Atlas Realisations label (US/UK) with a fifth electroacoustic series named Frozen Refrains which came out on vinyl in the summer of 2017.
Berangere Maximin has performed at venues such as London Hayward Gallery's Harmonic Series, NYC Roulette, Quebec Victoriaville's FIMAV, Paris Presences Electronique festival, Notre-Dame-de-Paris Cathedral's Crypt and Palais de Tokyo, Bordeaux and Strasbourg MOCA in France, Florence's Teatro Della Pergola, Bologna's Angelica festival in Italy, Bern's Dampfzentrale, Berlin Ausland and Charlottenburg Baptist Church, Swedish Push festival, London Cafe Oto, as well as various concert halls, festivals and clubs across Europe, China and North America.
Track list with comments:
1. Gunter Schickert - Wald (excerpt) vs 2. Mica Levi - Lipstick To Void
"Funny to find out how these two are perfect match for each other, well almost. I've always thought there was some similar vibe, well now I've got the proof if I may say."
3. Colin Johnco - Morning
"The track is taken from the upcoming album 'However Far Away', the first album I've ever produced for another artist and it's out next April on Johnkool Records. We recorded most of it at the Ina-GRM's biggest studio and mixed it in my studio. Colin's built the instrument he plays himself with various pedals and effect devices."
4. Helm - Sky Wax (London)
"Intriguing like some heart beating in resonance with the world around it."
5. Berangere Maximin - Der Stern
"A voluntary act of dissolution and an illustration of "when you're in love, everything makes sense."
6. African Head Charge - Crocodile Hand Luggage
"When I start listening to this music, I just can't stop. I'm not always in the mood for it, mind. But when I am, I just play the three albums I've got from them in loop. It brings me back to my creole roots but in a urban context, like a fantasy from my childhood, how different it could have been."
7. Perc - Woodford
"My thoughts are out there, in Woodford, a few hours a day, funny to have found a soundtrack to it. Falsely wild with well hidden tenderness, intense."
8. David Toop - Soft Cavities
"Beautiful textures and nice groove. I enjoy the way the sax and the rest respond to one another."
9. Francois Bayle - Toupie dans le ciel (3e mvt)
"Sensual as hell, even though I doubt the composer would say so (wink)."
10. Berangere Maximin - Elpis
"Taken from my latest vinyl album called 'Frozen Refrains' out on Atlas Realisations."
11. Valerio Tricoli - As For The Crack.
"The first time I heard the album (Clonic Earth), I would have qualified it as academic but after several listens, there is something funnily familiar, the sounds are well arranged but not quite as it 'should be', like misplaced, very well written which makes it addictive."