On the new split release Basho / Still Forms on Portraits GRM, Beatrice Dillon and Hideki Umezawa come together to experiment at the edges of electronic music for the storied Parisian institute. Both works move beyond classical formats – they are sonic essays, sculptures, spaces for thought. Dillon and Umezawa mark a point where electroacoustic music is not only meant to be heard but to be contemplated.
With »Basho«, Dillon has created a work that moves confidently between club aesthetics, GRM tradition and Eastern philosophy. The title of the 21-minute piece refers to the concept of Basho, developed by Japanese philosopher Kitarō Nishida. It describes a non-physical space of pure experience in which subject and object, thought and perception, interact. Dillon translates this idea into her own sonic language, one that resists clear form: rhythmic, circling in on itself, full of movement.
Dillon works with microscopically small phrases of fracture, silence and friction, never exactly repeating. Umezawa, on the other hand, with »Still Forms«, directs his focus towards concrete objects – specifically the Baschet sound sculptures developed in the 1950s by Bernard and François Baschet. The Japanese composer, with his electroacoustic focus, captures and transforms their sonic qualities, merging them with electronic textures of drones, distortion and displaced harmonies. This is no simple homage: Basho / Still Forms feels alive and compelling, a sonic landscape that demands to be explored.
