In TEMPUS, I return to my first instrument, that of my childhood: The “Celtic harp” or “lever harp”. As well as the guitar, which until now I have played only in the privacy of my bedroom. Here, the customary functions of these two instruments are often given a twist: they are prepared, tinkered with, hacked.

The tuning of the lever harp explores the possible asymmetry of its different octaves to open up multi- modal harmonic horizons. The way it is played, often pseudo-percussive, is strongly inspired by the language of drumming. Each finger becomes a limb of the drummer’s body that I’ve always dreamed of being, playing the imaginary kick drum or snare of this little kit of prepared strings.

The guitar is often played like a harp: a modulating harp for the right hand, upside down.

Together, they form an instrumental chimera with two strung heads, to knit an imaginary and gnarled folk music, artisanal soul criss-crossed by trances of raw noise and impressionist colours.

Each song was woven slowly, spontaneously and intuitively. Without going through musical writing, without trying to understand, but just to feel. Taking advantage of the analytical blindness imposed by at times random open-tunings, it was a question of letting the gesture decide for itself, of letting the ear guide the voice, without the desire to contort the form to a preconceived idea or to customary concepts.

The lyrics oscillate between French and English. Each language is a different instrument-material: English-wood, with its knots, its tonic accent reliefs and its solid joints; French-textile, fluid, undulating. They each compose and sculpt music in their own way: deploying their own temporalities, colours, textures, resistances, lights, and ways of dealing with meaning.