Behind The Scenes With Aries Mond

As soon as I received a series of photographs from Boris Billier who records as Aries Mond, I was taken to a new dimension within his new album Edge Angles. These images were all taken during a foggy hike near his home in the Pyrenees. Based in the south of France, Boris has crafted a record that captures the essence of working within narrow windows of time. These brief and spontaneous recording sessions reflect the same serendipity he experienced on that mountain path. The fog lifts, the landscape reveals itself and then the moment is gone.

In this post, Boris takes us behind the scenes, reflecting on the challenges of balancing theatre collaborations with personal projects, his process of capturing music in short bursts and how the mountain environment outside subtly informed his work. Accompanying his words are the series of misty photos, shared with the times they were taken to share a glimpse of the scenery that surrounded him as this record took shape. At the end of this post you’ll find an embedded Bandcamp player where you can hear the album.

Time: 17h 02m

When did you create Edge Angles? Could you tell us more about why you had such a short window of time to create and how you adapted your processes?

I worked on a lot of collaborations with theatre these last two years. At the end of this period, I was involved on projects with seven different companies at the same time, and none of these projects required piano recordings. The agenda was quite complicated to organize. And at some point I had to disconnect from all this and record pianos for myself. I enjoy to have quite long periods free time to focus on personal projects. Ideally, I organize myself to save two or three days here, one free week there. But for this album, most of the takes come from 10-20 minutes recording sessions, I think the longest session lasted 2 hours. All the edits and mixes were done the same way.

Time: 17h 03m

Could you tell us more about the photos you have shared? Where and when were they taken? How did this environment impact the music you were creating?

These photos come from a hike nearby to the place I live in the Pyrénées. It was a two hour climb in the fog following a route I did not know. It was an easy and clear path in the forest and when I arrived at the end of it, I reached a cabin that was on the map, but I couldn’t see anything, and was unable to continue. Never mind, it’s always cool to spend time outdoors. I was ready for a u-turn anyway. At this moment, during the time it took to take a rest, in five minutes the whole cloud went. It was quite crazy to discover this place in these conditions - I enjoy your English word 'mind blowing'. I share these photos because I took them in the same days I recorded significant parts of this album. And it corresponds quite well with the way I did this record - catching short and fortuitous time frames.

As you also ask about the environment’s impact on music or creativity, I think the Mountain environment has a quite strong impact on people’s way of life here. I’m not sure it has a specific impact on artist’s creativity or audience’s attention to specific forms.

Time: 17h 05m

Time: 17h 06m

What would you say are the main influences on your work?

About musical influences, I would say I have always listened to any kind of music. But the things that led me into composition are certainly related to the idea of what Americans called 'tape music'. This type of 'empiric process' studio composition was very strong in the big wave of electronic music at the end of the nineties. For my case, the studio work I create is more related to creating imaginary forms between speakers, more than conventional music construction processes. I also learned a lot in my practice from other artistic fields that play with imaginary processes; 'illusion arts', be it object theatre or visual arts.

Time: 17h 07m

Time: 17h 09m

You’ve made a lot of music for theatre over the years. Could you tell us a little about how your approach to making albums differs from these projects?

My approach is strictly different. Working in theatre, the sound or the music is just a part of a collective building. And each team has its own approach. There’s an infinite freedom in the music you can create for theatre, from the most naïve melody to the more distorted sound. Generally, things that are too composed are too talkative for a theatre stage. So it’s very exciting to do, because most of the time, I’m involved at an early stage in the creation process. So I prepare a lot of sounds, many drafts, and see what happens. And by definition, theatre is always a collective thing, so I get the final cut on my own albums, and with theatre, I can create with musical tastes I would never publish for myself, from super loud beats to ultra sentimental things.

And what would you say are some of the differences and similarities in Edge Angles, when compared to your previous albums on IIKKI/Eilean and your self-released music?

I’m not sure to be able to answer. There are very strong differences between albums in terms of instrumentations. I think there are similarities in the way to manage space and time.

Have you got any future plans or ideas that you can share with us?

There are one or two very interesting theatre projects on the agenda. I also worked recently for two beautiful films and I look forward to seeing them on a screen.

Time: 17h 20m

Your work blends raw, everyday sounds with piano compositions. Are there any particularly interesting sounds that made their way onto Edge Angles that you can tell us about?

Well, in this new album, I didn’t use a lot of them. And generally, I prefer not to explain where the sounds come from, because most of the time listeners imagine their own thing, and sometimes it has nothing to do with the original sound. But I can teIl you I have collected sound recordings for many years, some of them are recorded with top end gear, others with an iPhone. I would say in this album, I didn’t work with clean archived things; I just kept a few sounds from recent situations where sounds stopped me in my daytime activity.

'Edge Angles' is available in a limited run of 100 record wallet marble vinyl-effect CDrs, as well as a digital option in a range of high quality format options. You can take a listen to the album in full or buy a copy HERE!