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Jonathan Fitoussi | Imaginary Lines (Further Records)

“The stars we are given. The constellations we make. That is to say, stars exist in the cosmos, but constellations are the imaginary lines we draw between them, the readings we give the sky, the stories we tell.” Rebecca Solnit

The above quote by the American author Solnit inspired Parisian producer Jonathan Fitoussi's debut album for Further Records, Imaginary Lines. He used those words and the concept of Harmony Of The Spheres to create the six ravishing interstellar evocations on Imaginary Lines, to spin his own intriguing yarns about the cosmos. While conjuring the vastness of space, Fitoussi imbues the journey with profound feelings of awe and beauty.

“This idea that the constellations are an imaginary representation that man drew in the sky to serve as landmarks in space and on Earth is greatly appealing to me, and works very well with the story behind this album, on which each song title bears the name of a constellation,” Fitoussi says. “With Imaginary Lines, I wanted to work with this idea as its core; on one hand geometrical and linear, like the shape of the constellations, characterized by the use of repetitive sequences, and on the other hand, through sections of improvised organ to evoke the more spiritual dimension, and l’invitation au voyage.”

Imaginary Lines sounds like it was made with acute academic rigor yet it is also lavishly beautiful and sensuous. “I like having a mixture of a solid base to work from,” Fitoussi says, “which is characterized here by a repetitive sequence, that leaves room for improvisation as well. This is something that recurs often in my work: creating a stable structure which then allows me to create spaces within it. I also love architecture, with its lines and volumes, and I think this influences my work as a composer.”

To manifest Imaginary Lines, Fitoussi mainly employed an EMS Synthi AKS synthesizer and a Yamaha YC45D organ, which he processed through tape echo with two tape recorders. In addition, Fitoussi says, “many of the sounds were also fed back into a large metallic resonator (similar to the Ondes Martenot), which produced beautiful reverberations.” 

“Aquarius” starts the album on a spinetingling note, with its windchime and vibraphonelike pulsations reminiscent of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells (which, of course, has associations with the soundtrack for The Exorcist). Fitoussi creates a suspenseful foundation over which he drops dramatic bass plunges and cascades of astraldusted and oceanspumed synths. “Triangulum” offers a Philip Glasslike repetition of lustrous synth chords, but is less manic than most of that minimalist master's work. The track's subtle modulations and gradual intensification foster the sense that something momentous is about to happen—which it does with “Orion,” whose brisk percolation and glassy tones recall Harmonia's Deluxe, but shot into deep space. This is the sort of elegant urgency and streamlined propulsion you might hear on an avantgarde scififilm soundtrack.

“Oiseau De Paradis” and “Andromede” evoke the feeling of effortless ascension through smooth,celestial oscillations, with the latter coming off as slightly more hectic, generating the illusion of pursuit.

JO JOHNSON - “Weaving”

(In 200 Words, we highlight a new record we like a lot, via a 200-word review by Marc Masters and 200 words (or so) from the artist about whatever they choose.)

JO JOHNSON –  Weaving LP (Further)

Some music is so open about its influences that not referring to those influences when discussing said music seems willfully ignorant. Jo Johnson clearly isn’t hiding her antecedents – the opening track on her first album Weaving is called “Ancestral Footsteps” – and yet listing her obvious forebears feels beside the point. Because she drenches her compositions in so much mood and emotion that even when you’ hear something you’ve heard before, you feel something new.

Maybe this is just to say that Weaving is less music to be analyzed than an experience to submit to. “Submit” might be the wrong term, since it doesn’t take much voluntary effort to be consumed by Johnson’s rippling, radiating music; just open your ears, hit play, and pretty soon you’re swimming in the sonic deep end. Each track washes into your nervous system from the very first sound, filling veins with running water, and nothing seems to ever trickle away. For me, “Words Came After Music” achieves this body-soak most thoroughly, its ladder-climbing emissions and rising quivers all directly striking the aorta. But really, all of Weaving is like that: notes and chords whose patterns evoke external influences, but whose effects reshape you inside. 

– Marc Masters

Jo Johnson on Weaving 

A few years ago, Mark and Chloe at Further Records asked me to record a tape for their label, which was a lot less established at the time. They were easygoing and patient and knew next to nothing about me, so I felt free to play and experiment without the pressure to fit into a release schedule, meet anyone’s expectations or think about genre. I could take my time and do what I like.

A tape release seemed quiet and small, which is attractive enough to an introvert, but it’s also an interesting format to work in. Almost obsolete, lo-fi, nostalgic, warm… When I thought about the ways people listen to tapes now, long-distance car journeys came to mind. This reminded me of a night-drive through Arizona back when I was touring with Huggy Bear in the 90s.

As we drove across the desert, I watched through the car window, through the layers of stars into the darkness, lost at sea in the midst of a tough, seven-week tour. That sky was so deep, it was like none I’ve seen before or since, and the tapes we listened to that night vibrated! This memory was kind of a backdrop for me writing Weaving, and sometimes I’d work on the tracks while looking at Hubble telescope images to remind myself.

It took me forever to finish the music – maybe two years on and off – and by then, Further had begun releasing vinyl and they decided to make Weaving an LP. The titles of the tracks took a long time to come, too, and it wasn’t until near the end that I realised a theme was coming together and each name was in some way about the relationship between past and present: evolution, inheritance, ancestry, genealogy…

“Silver Threads”, for instance, is about the long-distance communication technology makes possible, and those unique pauses between a message being sent and received. So long-distance with the Voyager mission that our voices may never reach anyone, or may only be heard long after the human race has expired. Or, closer to home, stumbling over the tiny silences, crackles and echoes during international phone calls while words speed through cables, under water, along wires and across space to be heard by someone thousands of miles away.

“Weaving” started out as a working track title. It originally described the way two arpeggios interplay but it took on more meaning over time and stuck. The word isn’t exactly cool or poetic but for me, now, “weaving” evokes a legacy of women’s work, art and activism, and conjures up a scrapbook of extraordinary images: women working together at colossal machines in a Lancashire cotton mill in the 19th century; Dora Thewlis, the young mill worker and suffragette, who was famously photographed being arrested after breaking into the Houses of Parliament – one of many working class women who nurtured the early suffrage and the labour movements; the art of Bauhaus weavers like Gunta Stolzl and Anni Albers, and the stunning photos of Michiko Yamawaki and Leonore Tawney at their looms, looking like they’re controlling some kind of retro-futurist synthesiser.

“In the Shadow of the Workhouse” is about a different kind of legacy. Some people inherit money, land, a title or status from their ancestors, but maybe others inherit obscurity, poverty, tragedy, shame. I wonder how many generations have been hindered by their ancestors’ experience of the workhouse?

We usually think of workhouses as long-gone, “Dickensian”, but the system existed right up until 1948. When she was a child, the threat of the workhouse hung over my grandmother after her father committed suicide, leaving her mother distraught and the family without a breadwinner. With no Welfare State to fall back on, the workhouse was a real possibility and its walls were feared as much as prison or prostitution. No wonder. Workhouse families were separated, parents could often only see their children by discharging the family and readmitting them, and there was a time when 90% of children who entered the workhouse died. 

As successive UK governments dismantle the Welfare State, it feels as though time is folding back on itself. Poor people and those dependent on government assistance are increasingly being vilified, punished and ridiculed by politicians and the media and I’m pretty worried about where this is all going… 

The titles “Ancestral Footsteps” and “Words Came After Music” are both about the archaic roots of music and dancing. “Ancestral footsteps” is a phrase stolen from the choreographer Martha Graham’s book Blood Memory (and only on my radar thanks to Niki from Huggy Bear). Graham’s words have stayed with me for a full 20 years: “There are always ancestral footsteps when I am creating a new dance and gestures are flowing through me.” She talks about keeping “the channel open” and, for an untrained musician using machines and software in place of skill, the idea that there may be a musical reservoir coded into our DNA that we unconsciously draw on is attractive and rings true. “Ancestral Footsteps” is pretty fast at 180 BPM and was mixed while watching Tiyiselani Vomaseve and Tshetsha Boys videos on YouTube. 

“Words Came After Music” was inspired by hearing the anthropologist Robyn Dunbar speak a few years ago. He is exploring the possibility that music and dancing played an evolutionary role in social cohesion before language – replacing grooming as a way to bond the large, early human groups. Taking part in music-making and dancing has the power to trigger endorphin release and feelings of happiness, pain relief, warmth and tolerance towards others. I’m no scientist, but that sounds familiar… 

Dunbar’s talk resonated with something very powerful I remember Arvo Pärt saying in an interview with Bjork: “People don’t know how strong music influences us… good and bad. You can kill people with sound… And if you can kill… Maybe there is a sound that is the opposite of killing?” 

Music isn’t on the one hand popular and trivial and on the other elitist and serious. I don’t believe (like Steven Pinker) that it’s a throwaway but entertaining by-product of evolution that we can take or leave with no harm done. Music is as critical to happiness and sanity as touching and being touched, or communicating with others. Its mysterious, ancient power makes us feel alive, heals us and connects us to other people in ways we don’t, yet, understand.

Extract from The Smoke Clears :: Listen on Further Records