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Volutes

by Snowdrops

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The gaye device
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The gaye device An otherworldly atmosphere of beautiful piano melodies and electronics. Captured my imagination instantly.
dag_nabbhett
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dag_nabbhett for the musically jaded who have trouble finding new sounds that click for them, like myself. listening to this, the title of an old song comes to mind, I Found That Essence Rare.
Matthew Doucet
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Matthew Doucet It's tempting to say cinematic, but a movie that could do this soundtrack justice hasn't been made for some time. Able to cast the mundane in a beautiful light, and freight our daily drifting with emotion, and significance. Favorite track: Trapezian Fields.
Badzie
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Badzie The little banner invites you to select a "Favourite track." but I genuinely think that's impossible for this album. Truly a thing of beauty, of peaks and lows, darknesses and thoroughfares glimpsed on the far horizon to lighter realms. I'm aware I'm talking in visual terms about an aural work of art, but there you have it - I'm at a loss to describe the places it takes me. Favorite track: Odysseus.
Trace Reddell
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Trace Reddell This album is so beautiful and amazing. I bought it as soon as it came out, and I've started my day with it just about every day since. Just an amazingly great sonic experience. I love every song, but the Mellotron on "Ultraviolet" are transcendent. Favorite track: Ultraviolet.
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  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Vinyl look CD | Digipack. A re-press of the sold-out Volutes CD.

    Artwork by Lali Torma.
    Design by Özge Cöne.
    Art direction by Snowdrops & Siné Buyuka.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Volutes via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
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  • Heavyweight Vinyl
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    FSC certified high quality 350 g Incada Silk paper reverse board outer sleeves.

    Artwork by Lali Torma.
    Design by Ozge Cone.
    Art direction by Snowdrops & Siné Buyuka.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Volutes via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

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Ultraviolet 06:27
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5.
Inception 06:42
6.
Odysseus 13:24
7.

about

France chamber duo Snowdrops sign to Injazero Records for the release of their graceful debut album Volutes on October 16th 2020, an eloquent miniature symphony of strings, piano and the notoriously challenging Ondes Martenot instrument.

Formed in 2015 by Mathieu Gabry and Christine Ott, the pair’s respective experience yields a freedom and spontaneity, and a deeply personal approach to composition and orchestration. Christine Ott has performed alongside celebrated film composer Yann Tiersen, longstanding UK alternative band (and reputable soundtrack composers) Tindersticks, and French post-rock experimentalists Oiseaux-Tempête, resulting in the breadth of musical knowledge and the acute, skillful sensitivity to compositional subtleties and sympathies evident in Volutes. Alongside their contribution of piano, strings, mellotron, electronics and the Ondes Martenot, for Volutes Gabry and Ott are joined by virtuosic viola player Anne Irène-Kempf. From a classical and baroque background, Kempf’s extremely lively and spontaneous playing adds a special colour to the album.

The duo draw from a unique combination of contemporary classical, jazz, electronic music and film score, and spent the first few years of their partnership composing essentially to picture. Most notably, this soundtrack work includes the score to Phuttiphong Aroonpheng’s 2018 feature Manta Ray, which won the Lion Award for Best Film at the 2018 Venice Festival (Orizzonti category), and was eventually released by the UK’s Gizeh Records in 2019.

Much like their composition work for film, Volutes is based on an intimate and intuitive relationship with deeply expressive imagery. However, for Volutes, the imagery is conjured by the music instead of soundtracked by it. Opening single “Ultraviolet” marries blissful waves of the Martenot - Christine Ott’s specialist instrument - ebbing and rising against a raft of yearning, gentle strings and the barely perceptible spindrift of electronic synthesis, which build toward the piece’s soaring finale. Elsewhere, “Trapezian Fields” is led by lilting piano and a subtle sci-fi undercurrent of popping, bubbling rhythmic punctuation. Later in the album, “Odysseus” is well named - a hugely evocative, powerful journey of soaring dynamic changes that orbit around alien soundworlds and a densely textured crescendo that survives long after the final strains of its melody.

credits

released October 16, 2020

(c) 2020 Injazero Records
(p) Snowdrops under exclusive license to Injazero Records

All music composed by Snowdrops, except for Comma (Variation 1) which is composed by Christine Ott and Trapezian Fields by Mathieu Gabry.

Christine Ott: Piano, Ondes Martenot
Anne-Irène Kempf: Viola
Mathieu Gabry: Piano, Mellotron, MS2000

Recorded at Wurth Museum Auditorium, Erstein, in July 2019 | Edited by Christine Ott & Mathieu Gabry, in September 2019 | Mixed by Mathieu Gabry & Benoit Burger, between September 2019 and April 2020 | Mastered by Sean McCann at Recital www.recitalprogram.com | Artwork by Lali Torma www.lalitorma.com | Design by Özge Cöne www.ozgecone.com | Injazero Records www.injazerorecords.com | Published by Phantom Limb Publishing | linktr.ee/snowdrops

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THE GUARDIAN
In the 10 best contemporary albums of 2020, ★★★★

A CLOSER LISTEN "Odysseus is the album’s beating heart. (...) Snowdrops is built for this sort of piece: pensive, yet with direction, seemingly caught between modern composition and improvisation."

THE QUIETUS "The combination of strings, Ondes and Mellotron never sounds less than otherworldly. The duo’s name, rightly, paints a picture of wintry splendour and remote, icy expanses."

BACKSEAT MAFIA "perhaps what Stars of the Lid would’ve been creating had they been active in the 1930s"

FRANCE INTER, dans la sélection de Djubaka pour "Par Jupiter !"

DEEPEST CURRENTS "seven compositions which seem to breathe, bringing to life emotions of longing and ache, but also curiosity and even joy."

ECHOES AND DUST "mesmerizing and inspiring"

TEXTURA "three kindred spirits creating in real-time, each sensitively attuned to what the others are doing." IN THE TOP ALBUMS OF 2020

MOJO ★★★★

THE WIRE, ADVENTURES IN SOUND AND MUSIC
Selected piece in The Tapper 54

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Snowdrops France

Formed in 2015 by Mathieu Gabry and Christine Ott, Snowdrops draw from a unique combination of contemporary classical, jazz, electronic music and film score. Alongside their contribution of piano, strings, mellotron, electronics and the Ondes Martenot, Gabry and Ott are joined by virtuosic viola player Anne Irène-Kempf for their latest album Missing Island. ... more

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