MARAÉ

Notice

The work is an extension of the research begun in 1969 with Rituel d’oubli, and marked out by Korwar (1972) and Naluan (1974), among others. These are pieces in which raw sounds recorded and edited virtually without manipulation are coloured by instrumental writing that is essentially a transcription in rigorous synchronicity with its model. The conventional boundary between nature and culture thus loses much of its importance, and sometimes even disappears completely. The previous works used mainly animal sounds, and pitches were dominant. Here, the sounds chosen are characterised by their complex harmonic structure and their internal rhythmic animation. Similarly, percussion excludes instruments with fixed pitches.
The word Maraé, borrowed from Polynesia, refers to a place of worship, and in French it also evokes the sea, by chance of a phonetic resemblance. The work that this word designates is itself a kind of initiatory journey through the wind, the sea, a cave, the wind again, and finally, fire.