Jeremy Gignoux is a Calgary-based Frenchman. He plays violin in the city’s jazz and folk circles. After an accident that stopped him in his tracks for a while, Gignoux began to develop a totally different approach to his compositions, one of slowness and extreme economy of means. The initial principle of Odd Stillness is indeed very sparing: a single instrument, a single note at a time and a multi-track treatment. In the end, Gignoux knitted a little around the initial premise, using duets and more than one note played by the instrumentalist in certain pieces. But, with the exception of these few incursions, the concept remains fairly faithful throughout. No pulse, just notes gently blown or strummed without haste, without aggression or excessive force. Like sighs, these notes are born and quietly disappear, superimposed or linked with others and slightly modified, thanks to the magic of multi-tracking.
Odd Stillness is somewhat reminiscent of Eno’s Music for Airports, but rather in a Spaceport on Gliese 12b version.
The result is, indeed, a strange, very strange stillness. A calm that is not, however, disquieting. Gignoux’s harmonic palette rarely veers into the realm of pure dissonance (it just brushes against it), so that the total effect remains accessible, if… disconcerting. The exception is Repeath, the final track, whose Pendereckian screeching disrupts the sense of quietude that had settled in. In a way, this is a good thing: Gignoux forces us to take nothing for granted.
Like a yoga session in a parallel universe, Odd Stillness invites us to open our minds, without too much discomfort or insistence, but still forcing us to take a step aside from our sonic certainties.
Strangely, but surely, beautiful and captivating.
