Nicolas Cueille - Curiositi (2024) [Hi-Res]

« Curiositi » is the work of Nicolas Cueille, French composer and multi-instrumentalist.

Over the last fifteen years, he has been very active dabbler in music notably as a musician: Pyjamarama, La Colonie De Vacances to name very few and as the co-founder of Presque Tout, an ongoing net archive of sonic landscapes from all around the world.

Using digital and analog synths, field recordings and his voice, he expands new horizons on his first album under his birth name.
The first moves are refined then manipulations scrape and wobble like an orchestra tuning up. Bleep and bloops from synthesizers appear raw and uncut to a soft crooning voice; picture Chet Baker strolling through magnetic fields, singing « This is such a cozy place. Why would you leave? Where would you go? »

Gradually, some kind of soul searching « down n’ b » unravels. Expansive and somewhat metaphysical, the record skips from digital treatments to natural soundscapes in a few heartbeats. Nicolas Cueille leads us on a spirited and creative path playing with technology and our/his perception of reality. It bleeds right on to the cover of the album representing an unknown matter that could be digital art and might as well be some rare natural landscape.
Astounding in their architecture and form, each of the 9 musical pieces of this album, abound: loops like mantras, like a body slowly mutating, full of melodic outbursts, accidental arrhythmia, garden crickets and haikus.

As for as name-dropping goes, “Curiositi” is Brian Eno and Moondog getting together to write the soundtrack to a new season of “Scavengers Reign”. Some will find nods to Laurie Spiegel or Haruomi Hosono, will probably want to watch scenes from « 2001 A Space Odyssey» and cuddle up with « Keyboard Fantasies » by Beverly Glen Copeland.

Minimal in the making yet massively thought provoking in its impact, a mirror effect as playful and demanding, as synthetic and poetic.
This is such a cozy place. Why would you leave? Where would you go?

- Éric Pasquereau -

Tracklist:
1.01 - Nicolas Cueille - Trabadurra Aespecial (2:36)
1.02 - Nicolas Cueille - Discombobulated (3:09)
1.03 - Nicolas Cueille - Omitid Habitat (3:12)
1.04 - Nicolas Cueille - Form id Able ob Stacle (3:26)
1.05 - Nicolas Cueille - Grand Finale (1:47)
1.06 - Nicolas Cueille - Toppo Loggi (3:34)
1.07 - Nicolas Cueille - Otomat (2:48)
1.08 - Nicolas Cueille - Fabricatta Lore (3:43)
1.09 - Nicolas Cueille - Opticca (6:04)