Jordan Vauvert
NEPTUNIAN MAXIMALISM, c'est la rencontre entre le drone, le doom metal, le jazz avant-gardiste, la musique tribale et la musique rituelle ; CZLT, c'est en quelque sorte l'extrême opposé, un "terrestrial minimalism" dans lequel Guillaume Cazalet agit seul. Junkyard, son premier album, est un duo entre la guitare électrique jouant un drone plombé et la cithare dont les envolées mettent en transe, un chant inattendu à l'unisson qui peint l'anéantissement du monde moderne par lui-même. Magnifique...
Favorite track: Junkyard Side A.
In collaboration with Ascetic Visions and Homo-Sensibilis Sounds, we present “Junkyard” the debut album of the solo project of Guillaume Cazalet (member of Neptunian Maximalism NNMM, Sol Kia, Jenny Torse, Aksu).
This release is dedicated to the future archeological remains of urban decay, the post-industrial putrifaction inherent in technological development. As humanity continues technological advancement, sewn into this endless and exponential process are the processes of decline, both through material exhaustion and inevitable devourment of freedom/dependency on the machine. Naturally we evolve with technology and begin to merge from our natural state...
The music contained herein merges the ancient and atavistic music of classical Indian and Tibetan natural culture with sonic soundscapes gripped and interwoven with mechanical textures, drone/doom styled guitars and other mechanistic vibrations.. Creating a profound and immersive sonority for the listener.. This is not just a release based on the immergence and subsequent unification of technological and natural forces, it is an innovative and stark exposition of what can be done when music technology is harnassed in union with acoustic instruments of ethnic origin. This merging of soundscapes draws the listener into a “post-apocalyptic” trance through use of unique vocal textures and extended use of drones and sitar while effectively retaining the meditative qualities of these originally spiritual instruments. One gets a sense of the human and technological worlds merging and, conjoined in meditation, yeilding seemlessly into the journey our species is embarked upon, something we can all relate to.
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CZLT is the solo project of Guillaume Cazalet. After a first piece of 1 hour spectral music using plasma sounds from NASA and guitar installations with ventilators, he worked for contemporary artists Felix Luke & Iñigo Bilbao for the masterpiece "Junkyard", by recording deep drone metal soundscapes like SOMA’s work ( SunnO))) ). From this work, he produced a first album by combining the traditional classical sitar with a drone metal guitar approach. This was the starting point of CZLT project.
A subsequent residency at Kanal-Centre Pompidou inspired the start of work on the totality of art related performance in a form of an occult ritual mixing gesture protocols and purifying smoke, cinematic and textural installation, drone/doom music, Tibetan throat singing, amplified sitar, flutes, ceremonial costume and paintings inspired by the Enochian keys and other Fatal Formulas..
Consequently, CZLT has dug deep into the devoted works of India/Pakistan's music of classical masters, such as Ustad Imrat Khan, Ustad Irshad Khan, Ustad Asad Ali Khan, Kaushiki, Chakraborty, Shubha Mudgal, Pandit Mallikarjun Mansur, Kushal Das, Parveen Sultana, Ustad Nishat Khan, Ustad Saami and Smt Kishori Amonkar.
This research is dedicated to gaining mastery of the sitar and vocal practices as well as to transpose this into the occidental context of amplified music. As such, these elements are applied to the drone metal, ambient/binaural and experimental musical approach of CZLT. Exploring the harmonic scales and giving the sound a new power provided by a large range of harmonics, from the microtonal aluminium barytone guitar blended with distortion from multiple bass and guitar stacks, creating a physical and immersive live experience. This is how he built a soundscape for this particular sitar and vocal approach, closely inspired by the devoted classical Indian music, Tibetan traditional music and incorporated with metal music.
Born in 1988 in Nîmes, France, CZLT lives and works in Brussels as a musician, painter, sound installer, graphic designer, producer and label director. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels (ARBA-ESA) and at ISASF La Cambre Architecture, Art and Landscape. He alsoworked with Eugène Robinson (Oxbow), Koonda Holaa, Marc Dilbak (Wolvennest), Sebastien Lacomblez and EOR, Jean Jacques Duerinckx. He released his music on I,Voidhanger Records, Ascetic Visions, WV Sorcerer Productions, Aurora Borealis, Paradigm Recordings, Epictural Productions, Base Records, Volok Records and he runs his own label Homo Sensibilis Sounds. He will tour in Europe, as the official opening for Blood Incantation’s Hidden History of Europe Tour organized by Killtown Booking for promoting his first release.
credits
released May 7, 2021
Credits :
Music produced by Guillaume Cazalet (CZLT) & Félix Luque
Guitar, Sitar, Vocals : CZLT
Recorded by Guillaume Cazalet & Félix Luque at Le Fresnoy, Studio national des arts
contemporains, France, 2019
Mixed by Guillaume Cazalet at Homo Sensibilis Sounds Studio
Mastered by Thomas Stadnicki at The Vault Studio, Brussels
Layout by Guillaume Cazalet
Produced by Ascetic Visions
Artwork : Junkyard
Félix Luque & Iñigo Bilbao, 2019
www.ibl3d.com/Junkyard-video
Junkyard (video) explores the accumulated car wrecks as archaeological remains for the future - a future that is undergirded by the consumptive cultures of petroleum, rare earth minerals and metals of which the car is emblematic.
Paul Virilio’s argument about the relationship of technology and accidents is illuminating in this sense: “every time that a new technology has been invented,” he writes “a new energy harnessed, a new product made, one also invents a new negativity, a new accident.” In this sense, the easy conclusion would say that the people who invented the car also invented the car accident. But what happens, when we think about not individual accidents but the industry as a whole as an extended scale of a systematic accident that leaves traces of wrecks as the memory of past archaeological periods, whether that pertains to chemicals, metals or residual traces of media of past automobile cultures? In other words, what if we think that the whole industry, with production, distribution, excavation and use, and what it has been doing to the earth’s “resources,” the organisation of labour and gender roles, a historical accident that undermines the viability of organised human existence? – the car industry as the accident of the fossil fuel culture …
- Taken from Jussi Parikka & Yiğit Soncul text about Junkyard.
Oh how I long for this album in vinyl format! Such smoothness. Such warmth. Such execution. This music begs to be taken along and woven into memories. Everyone I’ve shared this album with has loved it. The music speaks far and wide. Shouting out to a fellow follower, Brian Lehmann, for his excellent taste in music. If not for him, I likely would have never stumbled upon this absolute gem! Plinchmo Larduktin
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