A dialogue with cetaceans that weaves through immersive music evoking the ocean depths.
As far back as he can remember, Rone has never enjoyed appearing on screen. His tracks do well, his concerts are sold out, but he has little desire to perform on camera. When director Valentin Paoli proposes taking him aboard a boat to begin an interspecies dialogue with whales, he must not only agree to be at the center of a documentary (The Whale and the Musician, in theaters June 17), but also upend his usually solitary mode of creation. He also needs reassurance. He has also seen videos where cetaceans seem to react to his music and fears the consequences this project could have on their vital functions.
Conscientious, the Breton takes the time to educate himself. He reads How to Talk Whale by Tom Mustill (Albin Michel), listens to the album by the bioacoustician Roger Payne (Songs of the Humpback Whale, 1970), discusses at length with a whale specialist (Olivier Adam) and surrounds himself with various biologists and ethnologists.
Behind his modular synthesizer, Rone then understands that this soundtrack — conceived as a full-fledged album — is less a project of composition than a work of listening, observation, contemplation. It is a meeting with the living world, a dialogue with wild nature; from Al Lark to Try Again, it is she who imposes her rhythm, dictates the tempo, forcing a rethink of the structure of the tracks, ultimately more minimalist than originally.
With the exception of the duo with Yael Naim (Breathe In), already featured on Rone & Friends (2021), all the tracks gathered on Megaptera – the scientific name of the humpback whale – bear witness to this subtraction, to melodies that sometimes allow themselves grandiose moments but rely above all on frequency bands, the recurrence of certain sounds and the presence of enveloping textures – which heighten the idea of immersion, of the pressure inherent to exploring the ocean depths.
However, it is impossible to summarize Insomnia, Speaker and Caudale with just a few in situ recorded samples: there is, in these synthetic swaths and in the acoustic work carried out with the Maîtrise of Radio France, the gesture of a great composer, who has managed to grasp nature and transform the gathered material into a true musical, sensitive and cinematic experience.
Megaptera (InFiné/Bigwax). Release on June 12.
