Trublion du collectif Coax, entendu chez Electric Vocuhila, Parquet et plus récemment avec Julien Desprez sur le projet Abacaxi, le bassiste Jean-François Riffaud livre ici le fruit de ses réflexions musicales. Il voyage en solitaire, avec une guitare électrique et quelques effets personnels pour seule compagnie. Dès les premières notes, Rifo (puisque c’est son pseudo) nous embarque dans sa transe minimale et déglinguée. Le vertige nous surprend alors, casque aux oreilles, à l’écoute de cette subtile mécanique de la répétition. Rifo y sculpte d’infimes variations qui permettent à l’auditeur de suivre ses pérégrinations sans jamais perdre le fil du récit. Une belle réussite.

Betel est la 19è référence de la série Croix-Croix du label Carton Records dont on avait récemment apprécié le solo de Seb Brun Ar Ker.

There are noises. Many noises. Noises that are subsumed into other noises. Noises that undermine. Noises that accent or resonate. Noises that create harmonics or dissonances with themselves. Filtered noises, rhythmic noises. Obvious noises. Found noises. Noises that surprise or disturb. Noises that welcome. Noises that attract and repel. Loud noises, quiet noises and noises that disrespect the silences or enhance them.

Sitting between a laboratory and a plant room where secret chemicals are made, listening to the process, the agitation, the percolations, leakages and reactive bubblings and whistlings. Filters are eaten up by otherly filters and those filters in turn are consumed by their own echoes and filtered of course.

Arecibo excitedly thinks it finds another distant lifeform but eventually calms itself when realising it is only hearing an ancient historical interpretation of its own messaging system in reverse.

These are the components of this work. It’s a vision of post-industrial pharma dripping dollars into shareholder’s dividend troughs.

If all of the above tick your boxes then dive right in.

Visual artist and sound sculptor Jean Francois Riffaud has taken his RIFO alter ego on a guitar odyssey hanging primarily on tonal repetition and hypnotic rhythmic interaction. Running through five inter-related pieces that spur one another on like an enthusiastic relay team, the guitar on Betel is treated with anything but reverence and at times is barely recognisable.

The utterly basic hypnotic rhythm that prepares us for departure is like a slow helicopter with just the hint of a sparkle in the background. It runs wit the very basest of instincts and move slightly in and out of phase. His idea of a sound sculpture is assimilated here, something monolithic and simple but that has the illusion of movement, drawing closer and changing position.

At points the guitar sends reminders to you of its general structure and form, a primitive, distorted sensation that speaks of decay and antiquity. As things move on, so it becomes less incantatory and silence blossoms between the notes. Having drawn you in, it now settles you down, but its ghostliness begins to lose form and grows more static, more deliberate; a loop of awkward, blunt notes that disorientate the listener surrounding them with what sounds like a previously undiscovered frog chorus, intensely alive but hidden.

Offset metronomes spring to mind at points, but as an aural sculpture it is in constant motion with its simplicity of form belying its ability to draw you in. Sounds diverge each time and you think you are ready for the next logical step, but often there is harsh juxtaposition that surprises. Strings bark like dogs or a saw deep in the forest; rather unwelcoming, changing the mood for something darker and leaving a long distance travelled from the simple opening.

A didgeridoo-like sound descends into the abyss as feedback grows distant moving into the final coda which is strangely sparse and utterly unrecognisable from the setting off point. The violin-like comedown melancholy that drops you off at the end after the intense burst of hyperactivity preceding it is a bit of a balm that leaves you feeling a little more prepared for re-immersion into life.

If you are looking for a guitar album that is unlike any other, Betel could be for you. One musician’s idiosyncratic approach makes for something immersive and quite daring.

Carton Records and Coax Records have jointly released Betel by French musician JF Riffaud, also known as RIFO. The album draws on the music of sub-Saharan Africa such as that of Sunny Ade or Flamme Kapaya as much as being influenced by American primitivists and minimalists from John Fahey to Tony Conrad via Morton Subotnick.

Of the album, RIFO says:

BETEL is a chewing plant in south-east Asia, and also the name of a sanctuary of Jacob in Israel. Starting from the repetition of a declined gesture, taken in games of rebounds and filtered by transistors, spaces confront each other in a sequence of raw and concrete organic materials, sometimes figurative. Like a very old mechanical, pneumatic, pre-synthetic music.

A solo number for guitar and tape echo, “Smile” is taken from the album, released on digital platforms in June, and will be followed by a vinyl edition in autumn 2021. An hypnotic video using glitched photographs and cyanotypes, directed and edited by Ramataupia, is premiered here:

L’esperienza iniziatica di Rifo

Torniamo a parlare su queste pagine del musicista Jean-François Riffaud già incontrato in occasione della recensione degli Abacaxi nei quali il francese è impegnato al basso. Con un passato dedicato a installazioni e performance artistiche, Riffaud calca da dieci anni i palchi di tutta europea con le sue band Syntax Error, Electric Vocuhila, Parquet e The World no alla nascita del suo progetto solista Rifo.

Il 25 giugno 2021 è uscito per Carton Records, Betel, Ep di cinque tracce con Jean- François Riffaud impegnato tramite l’uso di chitarra elettrica, nastro magnetico ed echo nella realizzazione del suo manifesto artistico che sintetizza il modo “plastico” di intendere l’atto musicale.

La chitarra cambia aspetto venendo ltrata o modulata come nel caso della prima traccia, la lunga suite Leaf, nella quale le ripetizioni diventano la parte ritmica del brano. Il grattato della chitarra si scompone formando due linee sonore differenti

di cui una va a formare un drone di fondo mentre l’altra linea contribuisce alla scultura sonora grazie ad un gioco di rimbalzi. Suoni metallici e atonali vanno a formare un tappeto sonoro impervio e cacofonico no alla coda nale che si tramuta in un crescendo di oscillazioni industriali.

In Nut il suono si dilata, viene allungato e ltrato al ne di farne diventare un tappeto sonoro dalla materia organica e gurativa. Un continuo incedere magmatico tra feedback e rumori di fondo si evolve in un vortice sintetico con un nale ossessivo e ipnotico.

Betel si conclude sulle note morbide di Smile, un uttuare leggero di una chitarra che risuona come un violino per una narrazione poetica e sognante che ben si differenzia dalle prime tracce.

Partendo dalla ripetizione Jean-François Riffaud realizza un’esperienza iniziatica a dir poco sorprendente:la metamorfosi della chitarra in Betel lascia a bocca aperta, un processo che la rende quasi irriconoscibile con il quale Rifo si spinge verso una ricerca sonora articolata e dall’ascolto non proprio immediato.

Carton/Coax, 2021

8/10

A highly unusual effort by the artistic and atypical JF Riffaud, the French musician brings his training as a visual artist and many years frequenting jazz clubs to this electric guitar and synthesizer fueled effort that unfolds with an abstract vision.

“Leaf” starts the listen with 9+ minutes of fascinating repetition that leaves it unclear as to what type of instrument is being utilized in a percussive sort of fashion, and “Nut” follows with a mysterious ambience of almost spacey sounds.

The middle spot is occupied by the firm, mesmerizing “Paan”, which also showcases complicated guitar playing in a very raw delivery, while “Teeth” plucks and wanders in meticulous, even perplexing ways. “Smile” exits the listen, and does so with a bare but impactful sequence of light keys.

A listen that’s influenced by names like Tony Conrad, Morton Subotnik and Sunny Ade, Riffaud manipulates sound in intimate, exploratory and often unconventional patterns that provide much insight into his creative prowess.

Dans notre numéro de juin paraît la chronique d'un des projets de Jean-François Riffaud en groupe, Abacaxi (en compagnie de Vincent Desprez) sur le label Carton records. Le guitariste propose sur le même label son projet solo Rifo. Un disque de guitare que l'on peut croire à plat, et pourtant énormément de sonorités à travers moultes pédales d'effets semblent si verticales. De la résonance, de l'extension d'un blues étriqué, qu'il va bien falloir maltraiter évidemment. De la boucle rêche, des cordes pincées et tirées au plus près du manche, vibrées à ne plus en pouvoir, asséchées jusqu'à plus soif, répétées et décalées. Les graves sont multicolores et extatiques. Le souffle de l'ampli est là, comme sur un enregistrement cassette du plus bel effet. Ça gratte sévère, ça croustille à souhait, ça joue comme ça vient, ça respire comme ça peut, il ne reste plus beaucoup d'espace et pourtant le minimal est de mise. SuffisamMent singulier, le jeu se paie la reverb dans un combat homme/machine mais étonnement jamais noise. Et finit en blues proche de John Fahey. Classe.

Cela commence comme si le bruit des pâles d’un hélicoptère illustrait un long plan séquence (Leaf) d’un de ces moyens de déplacement qui casserait une ligne d’horizon parfaite, faisant onduler sous l’effet de la chaleur l’image, donnant à nos yeux l’illusion que le sens se perd. Mais ce n’est pas la vue qui est chahutée par Jean-François Riffaud aka RIFO, c’est l’ouïe. Alors que ce sont les yeux qui imaginent normalement le contact d’une sculpture inviolable avec nos mains, que ce sont eux qui tentent de percer le secret des différentes couches de peinture d’un tableau, avec « Betel » les oreilles sont connectées à cette partie de notre cerveau qui imagine les structures dans une représentation en multi dimension. Car si le disque a trouvé sa genèse lors d’une rencontre d’un rite traditionnel des bouddhistes Birmans, il est surtout une traduction sonore d’un façonnage progressive. Face à une masse, RIFO ne donne pas de coup, ne martèle pas pour enlever des éclats et faire naître une œuvre. RIFO travaille l’espace et tourne autour, l’habillant avec une routine qui se trouverait contrariée progressivement, donnant à l’ensemble une dimension tout autant esthétique que cognitive, son propre équilibre étant en danger face à la sorte d’ivresse dans laquelle cette boucle douce nous plonge. Dans ses mains, la guitare électrique est à la fois l’ébauchoir et la tournette, faisant vibrer l’air avec la volonté la façonner. Il en fera de même avec du field recording, jouant avec un son (en l’occurrence des grognements carnassiers de chiens sur « teeth ») l’amenant d’un côté dense et monolithe en quelque chose d’évanescent, le son comme s’évaporant. Le disque de trente minutes se clôt sur « Smile », une résurgence du passé, comme une bande son apocryphe d’un film des années 30, clôture énigmatique presque divinatoire d’un disque qui en jouant avec nos sens nous élève au-dessus des lignes d’horizon et des croyances.