YANN COPPIER: Coppier, Pan Sonic / INTONAL 2025

Acousmatic Concert with music by Pan Sonic and Yann Coppier (ca. 50 min)

Tracks from:

Pan Sonic – Katodivaihe, Cathodephase (2007)

Yann Coppier – Electron Narratives (2019)

Can electronic sounds generate fear? Can we fool our senses to let dark stories unfold while listening to a set of abstractions developed into space? During this concert we will focus on ambiances and stories, blending two universes that focus on opposite sides of a reverse spectrum, from the non-abstract to the non-realistic.

There is something about the work of Pan Sonic on Katodivaihe, Cathodephase which is, as often in their work, both elegant and deranging. Deep basses nested within drum machines of apparent simplicity, intertwined with electronic sounds and static electricity which, at first, don’t seem to tell a story until you let go and focus on nothing but the ambiance being developed. And there it goes, a cello appears along with fantastic distortions and you are sucked into the abstraction wondering how you got trapped in the first place… and it develops and keeps developing, relentlessly.

Extremes often join, although how this happens might be a mystery. Yann Coppier’s Electron Narratives focuses on clear storytelling based on often harsh abstract electronic sounds, using an eclectic collection of instruments and processes. Here the mixing process, amounting to a re-composition of each piece, allows to focus on ambiances, accidents and dramatic events, all backed by a title and a two-line poem. At night, a zookeeper lets us visit a space filled with hungry machines while robots engage in flirting at work. Morse code helps the dead to tell us their stories while stranded whales uncover their past and regrets.

Pieces from both albums will get intertwined. The answer to the first question might come at last.

Yann Coppier is a French sound artist, composer and performer based in Copenhagen, Denmark. His personal projects within the fields of music and sound art focus on sound qualities within the experimental field while questioning the role of the composer, of the sound artist/designer, of the performer and of the audience. In 2023 Yann has started an artistic research project on the subject of science and art through a PhD at Lund University, with the collaboration of the European Spallation Source (ESS). His subject "How To Make The Future Unpredictable", expands on his previous research on absurd sounds while developing new uses of space, timbre and context as core compositional elements. Focusing on collaborations and co-creations with the scientists, unfolding their dreams about an improbable future.

Visit Yann Coppier’s artist page – studio-ovale.com

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