Musicians have a tendency not to stay in place. They have a need stay in motion, to get lost (maybe in order to better find themselves), to step out of their comfort zones and prod their work into new forms, to turn a mirror to their output – and stare into it themselves. These are, among others, the reasons that motivated the first live recording made of tracks from Endless Revisions, Chloé’s first LP in six years – an album that saw the musician achieve a higher echelon in her creative prowess. A multi-faceted Pandora’s box of mysterious drifts, the album is anchored by strong tracks like The Dawn and Recall. An artist who deliberately plays with labels, taking in contemporary and novel forms, boldly launching into experimentation (as demonstrated by her collaboration with percussionist Vassiléna Sérafimova), Chloé wanted to take the album’s tracks and transform them in front of an audience by feeding them with new textures and inspirations.
Performed over a year at events such as Nuits Sonores, Sónar, Mutek (in Montréal and Mexico), The Peacock Society, and festivals such as Marsatac, Musilac and Colors of Ostrava, Endless Revisions’ live performance has evolved with every show. It was out of the question to let these new versions – replayed, recreated and restructured alongside the evolution of the performance’s very architecture – fade away without a trace. Chloé’s prolific Lumière Noire label, in the wake of its first anniversary, had to produce a recording that bears witness to the work that these ephemeral creations represents.
11 January 2019 / Lumière Noire
tarcklist
1. Dune (Revisited)
2. Because It’s There (Revisited)
3. The Ultimate High (Revisited)
4. Party Moonster (Revisited)
5. Outer Space (Revisited)
6. Moonscape
7. The Dawn (Revisited)
8. The Blacklash (Revisited)
9. Sometimes (Revisited 2018)
Slowly introduced by Dune, then propelled by the impulse of Because it’s There, the mix is articulated around the appropriately-titled Outerspace, followed by Party Moonster and the bewitching The Dawn, heard here in «clubbier» versions and adapted to a context in which the audience (whose enjoyment of the performance was audibly captured in the recordings), must be kept in suspense, as if carried away in a narrative. The set leads up to Moonscape, an exclusive track created during the performance series, before the performance ends with a new version of Sometimes, Chloé’s relentless 2002 instant classic.
At nearly 50 minutes, this recording is like a snapshot of a work’s vital momentum, remaining faithful to the spirit of Chloé’s Endless Revisions while detaching itself in order to conquer new territories. It is what music must also be: a moving creation that is activated and reacts in contact with its audience.
