Music, Moving Images, Double Bass

In a city crowded with composers eager to synthesize the pulsing, imitative, syncopated rhythmic languages of composers like David Lang and Steve Reich, Ghys out–New Yorked the New Yorkers, making a name for himself with ingenious collages combining found video, layers of solo bass, and a razor wit.

Ghys balances the ordinary and concrete with the abstract and conceptual. At times, his titles create [...] a sort of synesthetic experience [...]. Other times, the effects are far more literal [...]. Ghys offers room for both most noticeably with the pairing of “Northeast Corridor” on “Ritournelles” and “Trains” on “Mosaïques.”

As the title of the album suggests, his music is like a mashup of video and sound clips, sampled speech, multi-tracking, found sound, and more—and it’s all tied together with perfectly groovy pizzicato basslines and subtle yet witty social commentary. The colorful and unapologetically contemporary works live somewhere in the realm between chamber music, minimalism, sound art, and seriously catchy pop tunes.
So the next time you’re looking for something new, turn off your TV and tune into Florent Ghys’s musique concrète masterpiece, “Télévision.”

The new album by [...] Florent Ghys, is a highly conceptual, yet highly accessible work of avant garde music. Each song is inspired by, and based around, clips of dialogue from television. The French-born, New Jersey-based composer uses the cadence and melody of people to create his compositions, the sound of the voices synchronizing and harmonizing with the music in a fluid whole. This is just one example of the innovation in Ghys’ work.

Fans of The Books will feel a hot-toddy-and-a-fireplace-like cozy familiarity within these numbers, given the multi-lingual and found-sound samples comprising the album’s “libretto.” It is Ghys’s unrestrained whimsy and exacting assembling of materials, though, that keep headphones firmly cupped to the listener’s ears.

The barefoot musician combined multiple rhythmic and melodic gestures that tended to reveal underlying structures -- kind of like opening a set of nested Russian dolls. Like the composer Steve Reich, Ghys finds much to explore in the pursuit of repetition. The interaction with the video was also quite fascinating

The bassist used technology in a very intuitive way to enhance the musical dimension of his approach to solo concertizing -- perhaps engaging more senses than is the norm -- and his performance kept the audience leaning forward and clamoring for more when it was over.

A la première écoute, on pense à un quatuor à cordes. En prise directe avec les voix d'un bulletin météo polyglotte dont l'échange se nourrit. Mais Florent Ghys est seul maître à bord de l'interaction stimulante de ce Télévision, enregistré dans sa chambre, à Brooklyn. Le contrebassiste et compositeur français entrelace, dans une approche chambriste et contemporaine, sa matière acoustique démultipliée aux sons ambiants et à divers vocaux via un traitement ultrasoigné.

Baroque Tardif is a great introduction to Ghys’s unique, experimental, and intimate world where classical flirts with pop in a quirky way.

Florent Ghys, c'est un cadeau pour votre cerveau. C'est beau.

Que vous soyez allergique à la télé ou que vous adoriez rester scotché devant le « petit écran », écoutez ce disque ! Florent Ghys est un contrebassiste bordelais qui vit désormais dans le New Jersey. [...] C’est donc à partir de la matière de ses prises de sons savamment assemblées qu’il élabore sa musique, certes « contemporaine » mais qui doit beaucoup aux univers de la pop et des musiques répétitives... et ne manque pas d’humour comme le prouvent les 13 séquences vidéo qu’on peut visionner sur son site !

Composer and bassist Florent Ghys writes pieces that blend elements of minimalism, pop music and a dose of extravagant wit.

Music lovers of all stripes can embrace the work of the composer-bassist Florent Ghys, who has attained viral fame with videos attributed to the Cats & Friends Choir. Ghys’s pandemic ritual is to scour YouTube for vocalizing cats, sheep, and cows; organize their utterances by pitch; and edit them into approximations of familiar pieces, including Satie’s “Gymnopédies,” Pergolesi’s “Stabat Mater,” and Bach’s First Cello Suite. As with “Coronadämmerung,” silliness veers toward the sublime. Satie, for one, might have approved of being translated into meows and moos.

An accomplished bassist, Ghys is more inventor than composer, as Arnold Schoenberg said of his student John Cage. In a couple of pieces, Ghys played the same piece with himself recorded and displayed on the video screen. [...] Ghys’ most clever offerings were accompaniment—reactions to videos. “Swing Out from Open Position” took several period dance demonstration films to which he added a jazzy, rhythmically asymmetrical track as clever counterpoint.

It is stimulating, demanding, and accessible all at the same time [...]. Somewhere between La Monte Young, Steve Reich [...] and Kid Koala, but also Missy Mazzoli and the Bang On A Can band, Mosaïques et Ritournelles proves to be a very pleasing release for all those who like new music, electro and minimalist in tendency, but flirting with contemporary art music and quite generous with its direct and frankly catchy sonic pleasures.

Composer and bassist Florent Ghys was drawn to a recording of John Cage reading an excerpt from his own Diary. [...] A solo bass mimics the rhythm of Cage's silky speech patterns, lending a jaunty bounce to his deadpan delivery. [...] As instrumental forces grow, they gradually overtake Cage. A small chorus of voices appears, superseding the instruments, then recedes to give Cage the last word.

Quand il ne met pas son talent au service d'autres artistes, opéras, orchestres ou musiques de films, le contrebassiste Florent Ghys [...] sort des disques en solo. Après Baroque Tardif, paru en 2011, le musicien français installé aux États-Unis revient avec une mouture très personnelle qui dévoile toute l'étendue de sa technique de bassiste, mais aussi son goût pour les expérimentations vocales et les percussions. Dans sa musique d'apparence acoustique et minimaliste, [...] on croise des samples d'annonces météo [...]. Ou encore des voix et des cordes de contrebasses qui se balancent et groovent en fonction de rythmes chaloupés [...] et parfois jazzy. Quelques instants aussi plus planants comme sur l'électronica de No Lemon, no melon ou Invitation to love. Un bon disque à écouter plusieurs fois pour en saisir toutes les subtilités.

Il est l'homme-compositeur mêlant samples de voix, emprunts à la pop, au jazz, à la musique contemporaine ou à la musique minimaliste répétitive, mais pas que. Il est l'homme-orchestre, assurant les pupitres de la contrebasse alto, de la guitare, du sèche-cheveux ou du piano, et des technologies de studio, mais pas que. Il est l'homme-vidéaste, offrant des images à chacune de ses musiques, mais pas que. On a évoqué à son sujet de la musique de chambre post-minimaliste, une extrême maîtrise contrapuntique, et la croisée contemporaine entre l'ethnomusicologie et la musique orientale actuelle, mais pas que. Car tout ce qui précède passe sous le silence le lyrisme de Florent Ghys.

Florent Ghys écrit une musique unique, entre Steve Reich et Kanye West !
Selected "Nos coups de coeur 2022" by the French Radio "France Musique"

As many of the archival clips are silent, Florent Ghys’ delicious, rhythmic score figures prominently throughout.  In the absence of a narrator, the music serves as the thread tying together the events of Hill’s life, while mirroring the emotional tenor of the art form’s growing pains and joys.