PHILIPPE PETIT
Extraordinary Tales Of A Lemon Girl Chapter 2: Fire Walking To Wonderland
AGO048
Aagoo Records 2012
05 Tracks. 44mins45secs

PHILIPPE PETIT
Extraordinary Tales Of A Lemon Girl Chapter 3: Hitch-Hiking Thru Bronze Mirrors
AGO052
Aagoo Records 2012
10 Tracks. 44mins23secs

PHILIPPE PETIT
Una Symphonia Della Paura
URCD071
Utech Records 2012
05 Tracks. 44mins42secs

Earlier this year, Philippe Petit released Oneiric Rings On Grey Velvet, the first in a trilogy of releases collected under the generic title of Extraordinary Tales Of A Lemon Girl for US-based imprint Aagoo documenting the imaginary story of a mysterious girl character inspired by Italian crime fiction and the various wanderings of Homer, Lewis Carroll or James Joyce. With the second and third chapters in this series of releases, Petit continues to experiment with processed classical music and electronics and creates a particularly complex and dense series of sound worlds which, whilst all more or less related, all have their individual identity. Divided into movements, reinforcing Petit’s connection with classical music, Fire-Walking To Wonderland and Hitch-Hiking Thru Bronze Mirrors are uneasy affairs to apprehend. Continue Reading »

PHILIPPE PETIT & FRIENDS
Cordophony
HOMEN035
Home Normal 2012
13 Tracks. 45mins32secs

PHILIPPE PETIT
Eugenie
ALRN029
Alrealon Musique 2012
04 Tracks. 24mins08secs

Cordophony
Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD
Eugenie
Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD iTunes: DLD

The dust has barely had the time to settle on the second proper Strings Of Consciousness installment that the unstoppable monsieur Petit is back with a handful of releases for Aagoo, Home Normal, Alealon and Utech to be released over the coming weeks.

Marseille-based Philippe Petit is as much a curator as he is a composer, sound artist and musician, and his records have become extraordinary meeting points for artists of all horizons. Equally, the music he produces ranges from abstract post rock to intense soundscaping to post-classical and beyond. This is precisely where Cordophony stands. Continue Reading »

 

PHILIPPE PETIT
Extraordinary Tales Of A Lemon Girl Chapter 1: Oneiric Rings On Grey
Velvet
AGO039
Aagoo Records 2012
08 Tracks. 44mins34secs

CINDYTALK/PHILIPPE PETIT
A Question Of Re-Entry
LUMB017
Lumberton Trading Co. 2011
02 Tracks. 23mins06secs

A Question Of Re-Entry
Amazon UK: LP Boomkat: LP

Philippe Petit’s work is expanding in forever increasingly circles as he widens his scope with each new project, feeding from his regular collaborations to embark on often ambitious pieces of work which have taken him from the angular noise experimentations of the Strings Of Consciousness collective or the oblique avant pop of his collaboration with Lydia Lunch to the dark cinematic ambiences of albums such as A Scent Of Garmambrosia or Friends With Faces and the orchestral rethinking of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1. For his most recent venture, the first chapter in a new trilogy of releases entitled Extraordinary Tales Of A Lemon Girl, it is a Petit without his Friends who depicts the forever shifting sands of slumberland and orchestrates the journey of the mysterious Lemon Girl, a character inspired by Italian Gialli and the work of Lewis Carroll and James Joyce.

Split into eight movements, Oneiric Rings On Grey Velvet is a pretty dense and murky soundtrack which incorporates elements of classical music, turntablism and electronic experimentations without ever settling on a particular theme. Continue Reading »

EUGENE S. ROBINSON & PHILIPPE PETIT
The Crying Of Lot 69
MONO040
Monotype Records 2011
06 Tracks. 43mins52secs

Amazon UK: CD | DLD US: DLD Boomkat: DLD iTunes: DLD

The first time that American writer and vocalist Eugene S. Robinson and French sound artist Philippe Petit worked together was for Petit’s [reciprocess +/-] album, released two years ago on Bip Hop. Since, Petit has gone on to record a string of particularly dense and impressive  albums, some documenting momentary collaborations, others developed into extensive partnerships (Pietro Riparbelli, Lydia Lunch, Chapter 24 or Vultures Quartet).

The vocalist with San Francisco-based experimental/noise outfit Oxbow, with whom he has released a number of records since their 1989 debut Fuckfest, Eugene S. Robinson is also a renown writer who has been published in GQ, The Wire, SF Weekly, Plan B, Hustler and many more publications, and is the author of two books, Fight and A Long Slow Screw, published in the last five years. Continue Reading »

PHILIPPE PETIT
Off To Titan: A Rework Of Gustav Mahler’s Symphonic Poem
KR006
Karlrecords 2010
03 Tracks. 59mins34secs

Amazon UK: CD | DLD US: DLD Norman Records: CD

Philipe Petit’s Off To Titan is based on Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 1, often referred to as Titan, a piece he composed toward the end of the 1880s when he was in his mid twenties. The work was originally deemed a failure as it showcased some unconventional forms for the time, a view shared by Petit who sees it as a precursor to contemporary music. His reworking of Mahler’s symphony retains much of the original’s orchestral grandeur, but places it in a very different context, and highlights its cosmic perspective with added electronics. Working from a recording of the piece which he re-edits, distorts, stretches to alter its path, Petit applies various brush intensity throughout, at times seemingly restraining his interventions to let the music follow its natural course, at other more openly layering entire sections, adding electronic touches or distorting the source recording to create new musical components. Continue Reading »

LYDIA LUNCH & PHILIPPE PETIT
Twist Of Fate
MONO035CDVD
Monotype Records 2011
08 Tracks. 47mins34secs / 06 Chapters. 43mins01secs

PHILIPPE PETIT
Philippe Petit Scores Henry: The Iron Man
AGO030
Aagoo Records 2011
03 Tracks. 40mins17secs

LYDIA LUNCH & PHILIPPE PETIT: Twist Of Fate
Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Boomkat: CD + DVD iTunes: DLD
PHILIPPE PETIT: Philippe Petit Scores Henry: The Iron Man
Amazon UK: CD | LP | DLD US: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD

Twist Of Fate documents the creative partnership between American songstress, poet, writer and actress Lydia Lunch and French experimental sound artist and turntablist Philippe Petit across an album and a DVD. Lunch emerged in the mid-seventies as part of No Wave combo Teenage Jesus And The Jerks, which formed in New York in 1976, and has maintained the same fiercely individual and independent spirit for over thirty years. Her considerable body of work spans countless solo records, collaborations with anyone from Einstürzende Neubauten, Henry Rollins or Sonic Youth to Oxbow and Omar Rodríguez-López, as well as numerous films, books and plays.

A journalist, record label owner and musician, Philippe Petit has been a figure of the underground music scene for over twenty five years, yet his first solo release, Henry: The Iron Man, only came out in 2009. Since though, he has delivered a number of essential records on labels such as Boring Machines, Aagoo, Sub Rosa or Trace Recordings, collaborating with numerous artists and musicians often operating as Philippe Petit & Friends. He his also one of the masterminds behind Strings Of Consciousness, a loose collective counting some twenty more or less regular members.

On Twist Of Fate, the pair bring together their respective sonic universe into a bleak and disturbing soundtrack. Continue Reading »

CHAPTER 24 & PHILIPPE PETIT
The Red Giant Meets The White Dwarf
Bm026
Boring Machines 2011
09 Tracks. 43mins23secs

In recent years, Philippe Petit has swapped his record label owner’s hat for that of performer, apparently putting the excellent Bip-Hop on an indefinite hiatus while he focuses on his own music projects. First, there was Strings Of Consciousness, a loose collective which counts over twenty musicians, with whom he has released three albums, including one with Angel, the trio of Pan Sonic’s Ilpo Väisänen, SchneiderTM’s Dirk Dresselhaus, and cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir, then came his solo releases (Henry: The Iron Man and his reworking of Gustav Mahler’s Titan symphony, Off To Titan), his ever expanding circle of friends, the franchise counting so many luminaries per album (four to date), some sticking around for a few tracks, others just dropping in for a moment, that it is virtually impossible to account for them all, and, last but not least, the full length collaborations, with James Johnston (Friends With A Face), Pietro Riparbelli (The Haunting Tryptich), Lydia Lunch (Twist Of Fate), and the odd isolated effort (the Mist While Sleeping 7” with Cosey Fanni Tutti released last year). Continue Reading »

As 2010 bows out, it is time to look back on a year that has been rich in new music, some from very well established artists, and some from entirely new comers. Here are themilkfactory’s twenty favourite records of the year, and this year for the first time, this list is augmented with thirty other records that have marked the year.

With no less than four albums in the top 20, the year belonged to Rune Grammofon, and more particularly to Supersilent, who occupy two places, including the top spot. Room40 also place two albums in the twenty best records on 2010, while new imprints Desire Path, Hibernate and Textura also feature with some strong releases.
Continue Reading »

PHILIPPE PETIT & FRIENDS
Silk-Screened
TRACECD009
Trace Recordings 2010
07 Tracks. 44mins09secs

K11/PIETRO RIPARBELLI & PHILIPPE PETIT
The Haunting Triptych
BM020
Boring Machines 2010
03 Tracks. 45mins41secs

PHILIPPE PETIT & FRIENDS
A Scent Of Garmambrosia
AGO025
Aagoo Records 2010
07 Tracks. 46mins40secs

Silk-Screened: Amazon UK: CD | DLD US: CD | DLD Boomkat: CD Norman Records: CD iTunes: DLD
A Scent Of Garmambrosia: Amazon UK: DLD US: DLD Norman Records: CD iTunes: DLD

If spreading oneself thin should be a very real risk for most artists, it doesn’t seem to be in the least a concern for self-professed music activist Philippe Petit, who, in recent years, has swapped his role as head of French imprint Bip-Hop for a much more active mandate as a musician, and has since collaborated with a great number of people on extremely diverse projects. He’s headed the wonderful Strings Of Consciousness collective, an ensemble counting up to fourteen musicians, with whom he has released two albums, including a collaboration with Angel released last year on Important Records, and a third one counting a handful of original pieces and remixes by the likes of Mira Calix, Rothko, Scanner, Kammerflimmer Kollektief or Leafcutter John, and has been involved in projects with Lydia Lunch or James Johnston. Three albums have materialised on various labels in recent months, two published as Philippe Petit & Friends, and featuring such collaborators as Graham Massey, playing bass clarinet, Bela Emerson, Jérome Paressant, Alexander Bruce or Raphaelle Raniaudo, while the third is a collaboration with Italian multi-media artist and composer Pietro Riparbelli, here operating under his K11 guise. Continue Reading »

STRINGS OF CONSCIOUSNESS & ANGEL
Strings Of Consciousness & Angel
IMPREC227
Important Records 2009
02 Tracks. 40mins43secs

Buy: CD | LP | MP3 | iTunes

Strings Of Consciousness, the collective of musicians led by French music activist Philippe Petit, who also heads the excellent Bip-Hop imprint, and Angel, originally a project consisting of Pan Sonic’s Ilpo Väisänen and Dirk Dresselhaus, better known as SchneiderTM, now also comprising Hildur Guðnadóttir of Múm, have teamed up for a project combining the various acoustic, electric and electronic inputs of these formations.

The two tracks making up this album, one clocking at twenty two minutes, the other at just under nineteen, and simply labelled #1 and #2, are the result of improvisation sessions between the two ensembles. Continue Reading »

Twenty five years in the music industry is a long time, but that’s exactly how long Philippe Petit, head of French imprint BiP_HOp Records, has been involved with music-related projects. Journalist, record label owner, musician, it all comes under the umbrella of music activism for him. As he celebrates the first ten years of BiP_HOp and his twenty five years of musical activism, Philippe Petit talks to us about the political aspect of his work, how meeting with some of the biggest alternative acts of the early nineties shaped up his vision of what music should be,  giving his artists complete freedom while being available for guidance and help,  and sexual piercings.

Continue Reading »