Lowell by LIGHTWAVE

The name of Percival Lowell (1855-1916) is forever associated with the exploration of the planet Mars and the discovery of its mysterious canals, whose traces and duplications were followed day by day through the telescope, from the observatory of Flagastaff (Arizona).

Lowell was an exceptional character, passionate about the culture of the Far East, a scholar, a writer, a man of communication, a visionary and imaginative astronomer. He devoted twenty years of his life to the telescopic exploration of the planet Mars and to defending the thesis of intelligent life on this distant world, the only explanation, in his eyes, for the immense irrigation works in progress across these red deserts, where life was threatened with extinction.

In 1996, based on texts by Lowell (Mars and Its Canals, 1906), Lightwave and the American soprano Susan Belling (1943-2000) conceived a musical project dedicated to this extraordinary moment in the history of modern astronomy. Between song and words, Lightwave's soundscapes unfold the magic of these telescope observations, of the fine tuning of the gaze, between blur and sharpness, of this exploration at a distance of an arid and fluid world at once. Lyrical and experimental, ethereal and concrete, these eight tracks, which have remained unpublished for a long time, are released for the first time.

We dedicate Lowell to the memory of our friend Susan Belling, who has left to join the angels.

Since their beginnings in 1985, the group Lightwave have followed a particular road on the map of « new music à la française”: Travelling from minimalism to electro-acoustic expression and to musical forms like electric trance,

Lightwave explores a poetic and sensual world and plays with sound as one would be with colours, shapes, objects or dimensions of space.

lightwave-musique.com
Christian Wittman
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