NLC + EMERGE
âme
4 track album, Released October 31, 2026 as free (cc) digital download and in beautiful limited CD edition.
"A grand title for an album that spans a wide arc: âme, the French word for “soul,” derives from the Latin anima - which also means “breath” or “a breath of air.” It is this breath one seems to hear in the shimmering sonic textures from which the sounds of this album emerge, textures that underpin its rhythms and melodies. The breath of life as the foundation of all inner motion, of all emotions explored across the album’s four extended tracks, in a constant interplay between tones and noise-based elements.
As an ambient symphony addressing existential themes, âme stands alongside electroacoustic large-scale works such as Bernard Parmegiani’s De natura sonorum or Michel Chion’s Requiem. In their first collaborative composition, Julien ASH, aka Nouvelles Lectures Cosmopolites (NLC), and EMERGE arrive at a remarkably complementary division of roles. ASH, the neoclassical composer, orchestrates his melodic arcs in a markedly more “synthetic” manner than on previous albums, where acoustic instruments played a larger role. This electronic sound merges seamlessly with the more abstract “sound recycling” distilled by sound artist EMERGE from ASH’s recordings, giving the album its distinctive “breathing” timbre mentioned above.
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This first joint album by NLC and EMERGE marks the culmination of a collaboration that has developed over several years. NLC has released multiple albums with various partners on attenuation circuit, the label run by EMERGE. For the Mahorka compilation Making Things Happen: Netlabel Day 10th Anniversary Compilation they created an exclusive collaboration track, that marked their premiere in working together with sound. With âme, the two artists now meet for the first time as co-composers on the level of a fully shared artistic work." --Gerald Fiebig
[mhrk515]
