So here we are on this adventure. It has been several years since I wanted to share a sort of nomadic notebook around music. This writing project along the way gradually became that of an album. So I will try to tell you a little here about the why and the how.
Some time ago as I was riding a small train that sped through the countryside on Kyushu Island in southern Japan, I saw the forest-covered mountainsides looming in the light around me. In this light they were blue. I then distinctly heard in my head these words: “The Blue Mountains”. So I thought of writing a song that would have this name, a song that would have talked about forests, mists, water, dancing clouds, which would have evoked that atmosphere of gentle beneficent mystery that one can feel in nature. I tried several times, made several sketches, but I didn’t finish anything. But these words stayed with them, until I understood that they would be the name of the writing project along the way of an album listening to the waters, the trees, the mountains, the birds, the flowers, or at least that his writing would be done in a close relationship with nature and those who live there.
This project is therefore a project that resembles me since I spend a lot of time in nature, many of my songs already bear witness to this, and that I often write while traveling. Obviously, trying to follow the thread of this link with nature, at this very special time that we are going through, is not by chance, you can imagine.
This project is therefore a continuity in my work even if the way of looking at it is a little different. Because it is also about stimulating writing processes along the way, especially during creative residencies planned in several countries, and also offering collaborations to artist friends who have a strong link with nature. Musical collaborations of course, but also collaborations with visual artists, who will illustrate this project over the course of its course.
I don’t know what will emerge from this adventure, we’ll see. As Dick Annegarn puts it so well, the song is like a Chinese poem, it is a complete minimum. I’m fine with that and just know that for that full minimum I wouldn’t compromise.
You will therefore discover on this blog songs written along the way, sketches, as well as poetic, sound and visual maps of the places we will cross, portraits, etc … You will also discover this year “Hirondelle”, an EP of 4 titles, four songs that I really like, that I’ve written over the past two years, and which are directly related to the energy of this project. There is a great desire to come back to you and continue to walk by sowing good seeds, by sharing regularly, after these months during which I remained in radio silence to nourish this vision of the paths of the writing of this album. .
For this work I would be largely accompanied by Yoko Takeda, whom you who read me here know well, who has been accompanying me on the violin and on my various projects for several years now, who manages all the organizational logistics in Japan and who helps me a lot by the way.
Coming back to these words “The Blue Mountains”, this term is correct in Japan, since green, and that of nature in particular, is often written with the ideogram “Ao” which designates both the color green and the color. color blue. In the text “Sansuikyo”, “Mountains and Rivers as Sutra” by the great Japanese Zen master Dogen, the Blue Mountains are mentioned and it is understood that nature teaches the true law of the universe.
Blue is obviously the color of the sky, of vibrant hope. The blue note is that magic note between the notes.