FANT^MS

Founded in the summer of 2014, FANT^MS brings together three musicians who share a common approach to field recording, but have left their microphones aside to experiment with acoustic, mechanical, electrical, and electronic phenomena. Their instruments are also ways of reclaiming relics of the industrial world: Frédéric Nogray's singing bowls are originally industrial quartz crucibles; using contact microphones, Lee Patterson amplifies chemical reactions or the vibrations of motors and springs; Pali Meursault captures the electromagnetic activity of faulty neon tubes and the electrical interference of the environment.

The trio's work developed during rare but intense musical moments, during which the musicians took up residence within their own installation. After Le Train Fantôme (Grenoble, 2014) and Les Instants Chavirés (Montreuil, 2015), the 10-day residency at QO-2 (Brussels, 2017) was intended for the recording of a future album. It took three more years, inspired by the improvisations, to produce Roomtones, the first album by FANT^MS, released on MMLI in 2020.

The double album (LP+CD) explores two particular moments among the recordings made during the residency at Q-O2, Brussels, in December 2017: a single session led to the short pieces that make up the LP, a moment of musical high during which the music truly began to inhabit the space; and the two tracks on the CD take advantage of the digital medium to explore, in two duets mixed by the absent third member, the minimalist and maximalist limits of the trio's music, on the edge of silence and saturation.

Cover photos by Marina Goussina

Lee Patterson - springs, motors, and chemical reactions
Frédéric Nogray - quartz singing bowls and objects
Pali Meursault - neon tubes, radio, and electronics