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Music

Synth Sights and Sounds Invite You into a Hyperreal World [Premiere]

Talking to Sabrina Ratté & Roger Tellier­-Craig of Le Révélateur about their brand new audiovisual experimentations.

Le Révélateur // Fakeaway Haptics (excerpt) from Sabrina Ratté on Vimeo.

The dynamic work of artist Sabrina Ratté and electronic musician Roger Tellier-­Craig, as Le Révélateur, is like a drug-free trip. Today, the duo releases Hyper, a brand new 12” that injects dynamism and subtlety into digital matter. With their analogic chemistry, Ratté and Tellier­-Craig dig deep into the mesmerizing madness that merges synthesized signals with computer created elements, reaching a zenith.

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The 12” will be available on March 18 via the label, Dekorder, and in anticipation, Le Révélateur debuts the first taste of their new work, "Fakeaway Haptics," today on The Creators Project. This cerebral treat furthers the duo’s new direction with a chirurgical precision—Ratté’s injection of complex architectures into Tellier­-Craig’s nostalgic pastiche of sound. We asked the duo a few questions about their imminent Dekorder release:

The Creators Project: First off, what can you tell us about this new release?

Roger Tellier­-Craig: Dekorder is run by Marc Richter, who also makes music under the name Black To Comm, and last spring we had the pleasure of touring Europe with Black To Comm and No UFO's. While having our last meal at the end of the tour in Vienna, Marc asked us if we wanted to do a release for the Hybrid series, so as soon as I got back from tour I started working on it and it was done by the end of summer.

Roger, can you tell us if you had any specific inspirations for this EP? What were your obsessions while creating it?

While I was working on the 12" I was reading a book by Greg Egan called Diaspora and the whole virtual AI reality that Egan describes in his book had a profound impact on the music I made. I've also been pretty obsessed with Morton Subotnick's mid-70s work over the past few years, especially his LP Until Spring. I was very interested in the way he approaches rhythm on that record, bypassing the tendency to use simple pulses and instead opting for "elastic" rhythms that seem to expand and contract.

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Sabrina, your textures have recently took a new direction, unveiling new shapes, colors, motions, and dynamics. Can you talk about this move?

Sabrina Ratté: This video slowly evolved through live performances with Le Révélateur; with each concert it took a different form, and eventually some kind of crystallization happened. I also have been integrating 3D animation in my work very recently, so I pushed the 3D aspect of the images further. This is the first video using that technique. I tried to reflect the granular textures of the sound, while creating a sense of space. Something between noisy electronic images and impossible architectures.

It seems that you favor a digital approach on this work. Can you talk a bit about that transition?

Tellier-­Craig: Not exactly, I've had a more hybrid approach to synthesis over the past few years, and this 12" might be the ultimate manifestation of that approach, but I'm still using analog and digital gear, as well as a lot of granular synthesis. I've been moving into this direction because it felt extremely limiting to use only hardware gear, and I wanted to generate timbres, as well as melodies and rhythms, that could more easily be done with granular software.

Ratté: I recently learned 3D animation. This new technique allows me to integrate analog videos into more complex architectural environments, and to blend both aesthetics to the point where it's almost impossible to identify which is which. I like this idea a lot.

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For those uninitiated with these kinds of sonic textures, these tracks are not so easy to approach. What would be your trick to dive properly at the core of Hyper?

Tellier-­Craig: That's a tough one because to me it all sounds pretty normal! I guess I would recommend that folks just dig into the sound and get lost—to me this stuff is psychedelic music, so disorientation is a plus!

For more on Le Révélateur, visit the duo's website here. Pre­order Hyper by clicking here.

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