‘Infinite Looping in Harmony’ - Special Project
'Echos' at POUSH, Aubervilliers, 2022, With the contribution of Sam Wilkes and Nicolas Faubert.
Richard Sears, 2021, Courtesy of the artist. Photo: Maria Jarzyna
Counterpoint and collision for 7 tapes loops
Sound installation by Richards Sears
Performance & Concert Calendar:
Instagram Live Performance in collaboration with POUSH
Wednesday, March 22, 7.30PM - 8PM.
Discover the works... and listen to their creators at work.
Counterpoint and collision for 7 tapes loops, a sound installation by American musician Richard Sears, was created as part of the group exhibition Infinite Looping in Harmony by the artists of Hatch Paris.
The installation links 7 cassettes to each other by means of tapes. On them, Richard Seras has mixed sounds from the studios and creative environment of the artists in the exhibition with his own expressions of work, via bootlegs (works that will not be commercialised) of his music.
Recorded with three other musicians (Masa Kamaguchi on double bass, RJ Miller and Guilhem Flouzat on drums), these "demos resemble the truest expression of an idea, according to Richard Sears. Intimate, working documents, they reflect "ideas and concepts" that Richard Sears tries to perfect "through repetition".
For in this installation without beginning or end, in the manner of Moëbius, everything is a matter of repetition. The seven loops of different lengths (two 120 cm, three 60 cm and two 40 cm) symbolise the infinite creation that occupies the artists every day. "I want to convey how a sound repeats itself and how, in its repetition, it then transforms into something else" in minute and "infinite variations", explains Richard Sears.
The mechanics of the cassettes were inspired by Edgar Varèse, who said that "machines can only give us what we put into them. In The Liberation of sound, the French composer believes that "the musical principles remain the same (...), for an orchestra or for a tape, rhythm and form are always the most important elements".
On this basis, Sears' Counterpoint and collision for 7 tapes loops organises 'disparate elements' (Varèse), with particular attention paid to counterpoint, i.e. the superposition of several melodic lines.
But unlike Varèse, the American pianist is less concerned with dissonance than with the harmony between disparate sounds from different times, places and sources. He wants to build a bridge between the avant-garde and the ambient, by linking, for example, "the sound of an electric drill with a sample of Pharoah Sanders (a legendary American jazz saxophonist)", but also "the sound of a pen on a sheet of paper with Guilhem Flouzat's drumming".
The sound installation will be accompanied by a collage of Richard Sears' scores, liner notes from one of his albums and the inspiration for this project.
Richard Sears will perform twice, as a soloist and as a trio, as part of the exhibition. Born in '87, Richard Sears was born in San Francisco and later moved to Brooklyn, where he played with jazz greats such as Billy Hart, Mark Turner, Muhal Richard Abrams, Ravi Coltrane and Joshua Redman. Richard Sears' first solo album, Appear to fade, is due for release in the spring.
Text by Florent Servia
CV / Biography
Richard Sears is an American pianist, composer and producer currently based in Paris. He has performed with Tootie Heath, Billy Hart, Mark Turner, Ravi Coltrane and Muhal, Richard Abrahms and other jazz musicians. Prior to moving to Paris, Sears lived in New York City, where he presented his work at the Shed, Spectrum, and Owl Music Parlor in New York.
In 2018, he produced Should I Lose You, an improvised piano concerto and electronic score, conceived in collaboration with composer and artist, Ethan Braun. In 2019, this album was previewed at The Shed's inaugural 'Open Call' program. The performance, directed by architect and designer Yael Ginosaur, was filmed by filmmaker Clara Cullen and resulted in a short film.
Released in 2016, the album Altadena features legendary drummer Albert Tootie Heath with his sextet. Currently, Richard Sears is an American Composer's Forum Fellow and resides at POUSH in Aubervilliers. He is working on his first solo album, Appear to Fade produced by the Brooklyn-based label, Figureight Records. The album is a collage of improvisations and short compositions performed on acoustic piano and Una Corda. The sound installation, produced as part of HATCH's group show, Counterpoint and collision for 7 tape loops joins Appear to Fade.
In a review of his previous recording, Disquiet, Le Figaro said, "his young work is already the act of a singular musician."
Texere (Altadena Suite Pt. 5) composed and performed by Richard Sears
Solo performance at Cité International des Arts, 2021
Scenography by Néféli Papadimouli & filmed and directed by Dominik Zietlo