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CD
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GZH 102CD
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French composer and multi-instrumentalist Christine Ott returns to Gizeh Records for her fourth album Time to Die, the sequel to the highly regarded Only Silence Remains (GZH 066CD/LP, 2016). Time to Die is a musical fresco in eight chapters, a sensory journey between the world of the living and the dead, for which the musician weaves a unique dramaturgy between contemporary classical and electro-acoustic music. The title track picks up the story where Only Silence Remains left off ... Like it's centrepiece; "Disaster", the beloved cinematic text here is read by Casey Brown. Ott seeks to offer strong sensations, without artifice, whether by the power of her compositions on the piano ("Brumes", "Horizons Fauves"), or by intuitive arrangements mixing her unique practice of Ondes Martenot with a maelstrom of Jupiter8, Monotrons, timpani, and tubular bells as on the first track. In addition, Ott captivates us with her harp playing on "Chasing Harp", by her aerial singing on "Landscape", or even on the airwaves on "Comma Opening", which ends a triptych of songs after the versions published on "Chimères (pour Ondes Martenot)" (NAHAL, 2020) and on Volutes from her side-project Snowdrops (2020). These two previous records have been praised by critics, especially in the best records of the year according to The Guardian. This expressive and spontaneous impetus, leitmotif in her musical production, takes a new form within Time to Die. Through the notes disseminated in an endlessly reinvented minimalist heritage, the interpretation is the ultimate musical glue allowing the pieces to come to life, thereby making this repertoire and its composer-performer unique. A universe where music -- despite the album's title -- never dies American musician and videographer Fredo Viola, with whom Christine has forged long-distance correspondence since the first lockdown, wrote Ott these few words about the record: "Stunning, terrifying, magnetic, delicate, painful and uncanny... It's like discovering a bizarre object hanging very low in the sky, something beautiful but unfathomable, just out of reach. The way I see the album is as a series of quite cinematic meditations on the theme of death and dying, changing prismatically, up to that incredibly delicate and beautiful conclusion." CD version comes in six-panel digipak with additional artwork featured on the inner sleeve.
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GZH 069CD
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Just a few months after the release of her highly acclaimed album, Only Silence Remains (GZH 066CD/LP, 2016), Christine Ott proposed a new album to Gizeh Records for its Dark Peak Series. Tabu is an original, live soundtrack, composed in 2012 for the movie of the same name by F.W. Murnau and Robert Flaherty and a performance that she's playing regularly as a ciné-concert throughout France and Europe. The magic, the beauty, and the incredible light of the movie associated to its astonishing modernity have contributed to the choice of the composer. Christine has been shattered and very moved by the movie, the story of an impossible love on Bora-Bora island, between Matahi, a young pearl diver, and Reri, a young woman promised to the gods. The circumstances of the death of Murnau, prematurely died in a car accident before the film premiere, emphasizes the mystery around this movie. More than a ciné-concert, Ott's creation is a black pearl, as is Murnau's ultimate movie. Ott's creation alternates avant-garde tracks with ondes Martenot and modern-classic piano pieces, sometimes light and delicate, sometimes dark and fune real . This cinematographic journey is ending with the original version of "Tempête", composed for the last scene of the movie, a stunning piece that Ott re-worked for Only Silence Remains. With Tabu, Christine Ott combines her passion for images and cinema to musical composition, creating new sound territories along the way. After lots of experiments down different paths, and collaborations with the likes of Yann Tiersen, Radiohead, Tindersticks, Syd Matters, and Foudre!, Ott here releases her taste for a kind of minimalistic chamber music. Initial pressing CD released via Gizeh Records in 2016.
"Christine Ott is giving us, with this new album, her first inspiration to the screen -- spontaneous and sometimes fragile. There is indeed a secret link which joins together Reri, daughter of the water, to Christine, sister of the ondes Martenot. In these pure moments when Ott's piano becomes a waterfall, a river, an ocean. In these heartbreaking moments when the composer, without ever over-playing manages to simply let go, thanks to a very mysterious and fascinating instrument, the tears that the audience may not always dare to have." --Thierry Méranger, Les Cahiers du Cinéma
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GZH 066CD
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French composer and ondes martenot virtuoso, Christine Ott releases her first full-length album since 2009 and her debut record for Gizeh Records. Only Silence Remains is beautifully melodic and filled with mystery, seeing multi-instrumentalist Ott performing on a variety of different instruments throughout the record. Ott's creations are nothing short of magical, with the piano taking center stage throughout, accompanied perfectly by the Ondes Martenot, harmonium, tubular bells and percussion. This music is revelatory in its ability to transport you to another time or perhaps even another world. It's nocturnal qualities coupled with subtle romance reveal an artist at the top of her game. Only Silence Remains seeps into your unconscious, and rewards with repeated listening. From movie soundtracks to opera, through improvisation, contemporary music, theatre plays, dance or rock music, Christine Ott's musical path has always been guided with a "no limit" spirit and will to share her passion for new sounds with others. Ott is a true eclectic artist with a musical journey that knows no concessions, always driven by an insatiable curiosity, uncompromising musical choices, and cooperations born with passion and heart. Collaborations with the likes of Yann Tiersen, Radiohead, Tindersticks, Syd Matters, Daau, Raphelson, Noir Désir, Vénus, Oiseaux-Tempête, Foudre, and Mondkopf have lasted over time. Her music is all together unclassifiable, disturbing, inspired and melodious. Ott is a mischievous, extraterrestrial being. Always looking for new and interesting ways to work, she does not settle on one instrument, such as the Ondes Martenot: an enigmatic electronic musical instrument invented by Maurice Martenot in 1928. Nor does she settle on one musical style: she is working with an ever-present passion to shuffle the cards. Ott has been an integral part of Yann Tiersen's experimental band for the past ten years, contributing on both recorded material and live shows alongside a vast amount of other work for theatre, film and dance.
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