Natasha Pirard – Fernande, Cecile

Natasha Pirard’s second album Fernande, Cecile resembles a distorted landscape of memory: tones sink away, loops revolve around field recordings, and the atmosphere drifts in slow-moving swathes. A ghostly minimalism shapes the album’s eight pieces. For this work, Pirard drew from her own inner life, from memories of her mother and her grandmother. What remains of the people in our lives once they are gone? And what remains of our own lives when we are no longer here? For this spiral of thought, the Belgian artist finds a sound that is oppressively light.

»Changement de pas« uses the synthesiser as a kind of step counter. Life moves forward, yet someone inevitably remains behind in the past. That Pirard does not drift into the darkness of fatalism, but instead allows hope, love and care to reside within these sounds, makes Fernande, Cecile a deeply moving album. It requires no words – only an open heart for this form of experimental ambient music.