Stéphane Rives

La mécanique du saxophone permet une approche acoustique-concrète de l'instrument ; les possibilités d'actions sur les tampons, et la flexibilité de l'anche offrent un moyen subtil d'altération de l'onde sonore générée par le souffle. En se plaçant dans cette pensée de filtrage que pourrait avoir tout musicien de l'électronique, l'attention se porte sur les micros-événements infimes guère audibles dans une approche traditionnelle, les plans sonores se tordent, la distorsion acoustique surgit et dans cet "intérieur" du son acoustique les subtilités des grains et des textures. De nouvelles matières émergent comme si elles avaient été, jusque-là, enfouies derrière l'immédiatement perceptible. Pour parvenir à les contrôler, on réduit au maximum toute idée d'intervention volontariste : un flux d'air traversant un cône métallique, une action discrète sur quelques paramètres.
Mon jeu n'est pas un aboutissement mais un instant qui répond à cette logique. Ma réflexion musicale se concentre sur la question de la pratique. Je ne suis pas mu par une intention musicale au sens strict du terme, mais l'expérience du son que je propose représente un moyen d'"exciter" l'auditeur, une manière d'interroger, de bousculer le sentiment de sécurité psychologique.
“The mechanism of the saxophone permits a concrete-acoustic approach to the instrument. The possiblilities of acting directly on the pads and the flexibility of the reed offer subtle means of altering the sonic wave generated by breath. Once one adopts a way of thinking based on the sort of filtering any electronic musician does, one’s attention is drawn to the tiny micro-events that are barely audible in a traditional approach. The sonic planes twist and acoustic distortion emerges, revealing the subtle grains and textures lying “inside” the acoustic sound. New materials arise as though they had always been right there, hidden behind the immediately perceptible. In order to gain control of them, one reduces any idea of willful intervention to an absolute minimum, leaving only the flow of air through the metal cone, an action that is discrete in certain parameters.
My playing is not about arriving at something; instead, it is an instant that answers to that logic. My musical reflection focuses on questions of praxis. I am not driven by musical intention in the strict sense of the term, but the experience of sound I propose represents a means of “exciting” the listener, a way of questioning, of shaking up his feeling of psycological security and transforming his relationship to listening.”
Much remains to be heard
NEW SOLO RELEASE OUT NOW
A technically extraordinary disc on the excellent Lebanese based Al Maslakh label. Like Seymour Wright, Stéphane Rives's solo saxophone experiments can make John Butcher sound like Lester Young. The high pitched, sustained, one hour track on Much Remains To Be Heard is right at the upper threshold of hearing. With all the hum and bustle of an office, amid the buzz of printers and computers, locating such precise tones is impossible. (THE MIRE - The Wire)
Al Maslakh - 2008
Propagations
Just when it seemed that the saxophone quartet might be a format that had run out of ideas or momentum, along come this French foursome to add new vitality to the genre. For reasons that are not entirely clear, even when they have included otherwise free, radical players (I’m thinking of Julius Hemphill, David Murray, Lol Coxhill, Paul Dunmall…) saxophone quartets have too often opted to play it safe; a sweeping generalization, perhaps, but one often born out. Now, this combination of tenor, two altos and soprano (together for three years, although this is their recording debut) takes a truly radical approach, an approach more compatible with improv methodology than with that of a big-band horn section or a four-part vocal harmony group. So, there are no ensemble riffs, no interweaving melody lines, and no call-and-response—in fact, none of the standard sax quartet vocabulary. And—just as refreshingly—they aren’t called The (Blah-Blah) Saxophone Quartet either; they are just identified by their names. Instead, across three tracks varying in length from ten to just over seventeen minutes (a total time of forty-one minutes), the saxophones predominantly play long-sustained notes or make subtle noises with the instruments’ pads without blowing. The combined effect often sounds more like a combination of resonating electronics and percussion than four saxophones. The final track starts out with the players in a rather more garrulous mood, but not until late in the piece do they remotely approach familiar sax quartet territory, when all four blow together, producing a righteous blast of sound. But it is short lived, followed by a period of guilty silence, as if they have to atone for the outburst. These four almost willfully seem to be avoiding well-trodden pathways, thumbing their noses at them and, hence, at clichés of the genre. Admirable.[All About Jazz]
Potlactch - 2007
Plateformes
Just how far can you stretch a strident, staccato line? The three Paris-based improvisers featured on Plateformes are evidentially determined to find out, as their more-than-48-minute CD consists of parallel horizontal wave forms expelled in the same direction, without pause, and with few variations. A shill, jumpy variation on minimalist music, the CD chafes rather than soothes – which is obviously its intention. By the same token however, it isn’t musical solipsism, any more than the vision of other improvisers or composers. Concentrate long enough on this aural grisaille and the infinitesimal tincture variations that go into the playing to make it three dimensional become progressively evident. For instance no sooner do your ears get used to one, seemingly endless triggered envelope of sound from Stéphane Rives’ closely-miced soprano saxophone which vibrates in concentrated direction, that it’s then replaced by oscillating feedback from Hervé Boghossian’s electric guitar. Quivering with an intensity midway between an AC/DC electrical signal and flanged loops, it’s subsequently swapped for yet another triggered sequence of circular pulses from Matthieu Saladin’s amplified bass clarinet Rives, who recorded a disc of reductionist solo reed tones in 2003, plays with other lower-case improvises like pianist Sophie Agnel and Norwegian percussionist Ingar Zach. Marseille-born Boghossian has collaborated with like-minded players such as British cellist/electronicist Mark Wastell and German percussionist Burkhard Beins. Saladin is currently a PhD student in musical aesthetics at the Sorbonne and a member of the electro-acoustic band Archipel. Built most of the time on unison triple counterpoint between the two reeds and the guitar, before variants of three-part harmony pan across the sound field, mid-way through, individual pitches break through the solid, near impenetrable drone. Quivering organ-like drones from the clarinetist, split tones from the saxophonist and the guitarist’s solid buzz stand out throughout. As the pulsed reeds squeakily inflate in volume, the affiliated partials that resonate along with the original frequencies are more obvious. Not the first improvisers to generate similar concentrated pulses, the trio’s solid tone with benefits is particularly memorable, since the single-minded drone it creates as a signature continues to echo even after the CD ends. The posed question is answered with notable sounds.[Jazz Word]
(1.8)sec.records - 2006
Dining Room Music
Creative Sources - 2005
Fibres
Among free reed improvisers, the soprano sax seems to garner more attention than its relatives, especially among the post-Evan Parker contingent. You have Butcher, Doneda, Rainey, Bosetti, all excellent musicians, all apparently drawn to the extremes afforded by the instrument, perhaps due to the comparatively anonymous, non-personal sound that’s possible to evoke from that smaller horn. While all reed players have a baggage issue to come to grips with, pity the poor young soprano player trying to carve out his own niche in this heavily trodden territory. There are several potential avenues of escape. One might simply play melodically, using lessons learned from the highly abstracted music of one’s forebears to fashion a new sort of “traditional” music; that road is all too rarely followed. Another is obsessiveness, honing in on small slices of one’s sound world, worrying them no end, hopefully transfiguring them into something wonderful. This latter is the approach taken by French saxophonist Stephane Rives and it’s a pretty successful one. Similar in this regard to another young European reed player, Thomas Ankersmit, Rives chooses one precise area to explore per piece then delves into it with single-minded purpose and abandon. There’s something of a tradition in this strategy, dating back to Anthony Braxton’s solo work which was often a catalog of saxophonic attacks: a buzz piece, a trill piece, one imitating dog howls, etc. Here, Rives displays three separate mini-genres, each examined two or three times. “Larsen et le Roseau”, played in two variations, takes Parker-like arabesques and pushes them out a bit further into a banshee screech zipping in and out of multiphonics. The first time through, Rives contrasts ultra-high whistling with a grainy substratum, occasionally skidding into multiphonics. His second take is lengthier and adds a couple of new elements including key tapping and a ghostly, hollow tone midway between high and low. The “Granulations” series, as the title implies, investigates a quiet realm that integrates breath tones with bubbling action occasioned by spittle. It’s a surprisingly fascinating, even pretty soundscape that, after several minutes, becomes quite immersive. Each subsequent variation adds another sound, first a kind of windswept roar and finally an echoic percolation as though the saxophone is drifting down an underground stream. The two “Ebranlements” investigate drones, the first staying in the lowest ranges of the instrument and casting forth immense slabs of sound. The second is an extremely intense though short piece that contrasts a harsh, high overblowing with equally harsh breath tones. The closest comparison is probably Michel Doneda who shares an intensity of focus with Rives but this younger player has raised the bar just a bit, venturing into fresh territory and keeping the discoveries viscerally and emotionally interesting enough to result in far more than a science experiment. “Fibres” is a very fine disc and Rives is clearly someone to keep a close ear on.[Bagatellen]
Potlactch - 2003
Oxymore
1999
w/ Sophie Agnel, AMM, Ricardo Arias, Boris Baltschun, Marc Baron, Pascal Battus, Alexandre Bellenger, Olivier Benoît, Loïc Blairon, Frédéric Blondy, Hervé Boghossian, Jean Bordé, Laurence Bouckaert, Sébastien Bouhana, Mike Bullock, Gust Burns, Olivier Brisson, Lucio Capece, Seth Cluett, Das Synthetische Mishgewebe, Angharad Davies, Rhodri Davies, Matt Davis, Chris DeLaurenti, Sophie Delizée, Bertrand Denzler, Michel Doneda, Ben Drew, Benjamin Duboc, Quentin Dubost, Tucker Dulin, Markus Eichenberger, Bryan Eubanks, Gérard Fabbiani, Dante Feïjoo, David Fenech, Basile Ferriot, Jeff Gburek, Jean-Philippe Gross, David Gross, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Charbel Haber, Matt Hannafin, Andy Haylek, Jassem Hindi, Bonnie Jones, Jean-Paul Jenkins, Mazen Kerbaj, Martin Küchen, Andrew Lafkas, Alastair Leslie, Thierry Madiot, Wade Matthews, Lionel Marchetti, Dirk Marwedel, Seijiro Murayama, Paul Neidhardt, Andrea Neumann, Per Anders Nilsson, Frédéric Nogray, Bob Ostertag, Agnès Palier, Edward Perraud, Reuben Radding, Vic Rawlings, Arnaud Rivière, Ernesto Rodrigues, Guillerme Rodrigues, Bechir Saade, Matthieu Saladin, Carlos Santos, Evelyne Saunier, Sharif Sehnaoui, Christine Sehnaoui, Nikos Veliotis, Dan Warburton, Maki Watanabe, Barry Weistblat, Tyler Wilcox, Seymour Wright, Jack Wright, Raed Yassin, Otomo Yoshihide, Ingar Zach, Gyohei Zaitsu, Michael Zerang.