Turmoil

“Paris-based Franco-British percussionist and sound artist Sébastien Forrester returns with his first solo release in almost two years for French powerhouse Promesses: a 5-track EP called ‘Turmoil’ that, more than ever in his career, brings to life the crossroads of experimental club mutations, leftfield drumming and ritual music, with a huge emphasis on trance-inducing rhythmic structures. ‘Turmoil’ is eminently stormy and insurgent, saturated by wild emotions, deeply rooted in a period of mistrust, anxiety and relentless hunt for hope. It also embodies a more collective and playful approach to composing with the club in mind, as collaborating with friends (Ehua, Citizen Boy and 3Phaz here) had somehow become a way of keeping up with the dancefloor throughout the successive lockdowns: Forrester’s approach to rhythm and sound design then meets Ehua’s wide oceans of bass and eerie textures, Citizen Boy’s fiery original gqom sound and 3Phaz’s hybrid post-Chaabi hard drum variations. Rudely tumultuous pipes, both organic and artificially recreated using FM synthesis, span across the whole EP - most of them draw from the cabrette, a 19th century type of bagpipe originating from Auvergne. As Sébastien Forrester recently found out, the bagpipe somehow embodies a bridge between his French Occitan roots and the British side of his family: it has since then been a fascinating object of research. Most percussion elements were first recorded using a singular drum kit made of bells, custom cymbals, prepared bongos and tambours, created by his friend Léo Liégeois, then digitally processed through various digital patches. The raw, live feel of some of the drums, very present throughout the record, is a nod at Forrester’s background as a jazz drummer. Formerly known as Holy Strays (acclaimed by the likes of Pitchfork, the Fader, Fact Magazine, Dazed, etc), Sébastien Forrester has always had a recurring obsession for sacred music and idiosyncratic sounds - his very first encounter with music and percussion as a kid was the Bwiti ritual drums, while he was living in Gabon and central Africa with his family in the late 1990s. The drummer and producer started releasing music early on, at the age of 19, and has put out records on international labels such as Not Not Fun and Hands in the Dark. Over the last years, he has also remixed Rejjie Snow, SUUNS and Forest Swords, and shared stages with acts as diverse as SBTRKT, The Soft Moon and Zola Jesus, all across Europe. His latest pieces of work explore his relationship to trance, pipes and percussive instruments. Recent collaborations include Brodinski, Lafawndah, Slikback, Coby Sey, as well as Toulouse-based experimental dancer and choreographer Pierre Rigal.”