For those not in the know, “hORs TempS” is a collection of compositions by Géraldine Eguiluz created using music that was recorded on cassettes in Paris in the early 1990s. After actively listening to and processing the original tapes to create mutating collages, they were presented to Michel F. Côté so that he could freely interact with them.

Géraldine and Michel thus became ethno-musico-souls, archivists who discover buried sound documents, which they decipher, restore and complete to revive their original meaning and create a new corpus. Each of the pieces in “hORs TempS” is a forgotten, found and restored treasure, brought back into the world.

This unusual aesthetic encounter generates and highlights a new material that merges with an old music whose essence remains intact. A priori, it authentically expresses Geraldine’s musical, folkloric, poetic and dreamlike research, then in her early twenties. Thirty-five years later, with Michel F. Côté, she finds a new fertile land.

1. Territoires perdus #1 [01:35]
2. La montaña y el agua [04:03]
3. Territoires perdus #2 [01:50]
4. La montaña y el viento [01:22]
5. Visiteurs #1 [01:39]
6. La jeune fille et la vie [02:44]
7. Les grands départs [04:23]
8. Territoires perdus #3 [02:25]
9. Despedida [02:55]
10. Visiteurs #2 [01:24]
11. Retrato de mi madre [01:45]
12. Territoires perdus #4 [02:34]
13. La montaña dorada [02:46]
14. Visiteurs #3 [04:05]
15. Semilla para el fin del mundo [03:19]
16. Territoires perdus #5 [03:30]

Structured around four suites of pieces: “Territoires perdus”, “La montagne”, “Les grands départs” and “Visiteurs”, whose themes are farewells, migrations, spirits, loss, finitude, and, as a backdrop, joy, she opens up this new recording on the rhythmical static of Territoires perdus #1, the steely smooth La montaña y el agua, the jaunty Territoires perdus #2 and both the backwards looped La montaña y el viento and the impassioned Visiteurs #1, before we get the industrial La jeune fille et la vie, the foreboding Les grands départs and the spatially involved Territoires perdus #3.

Along next is the Latin-hued hipsway of Despedida, the frenetically reversed sounds of Visiteurs #2, the resplendently-charged Retrato de mi madre, the playful Territoires perdus #4, and the encompassing La montaña dorada, and they are in turn seamlessly followed by the creatively sculpted piano piece Visiteurs #3, the jaggedly pointed Semilla para el fin del mundo, the new set coming to a close on the echoingly stirring Territoires perdus #5.

Géraldine Eguiluz @ Instagram

Michel F. Côté @ Bandcamp