Dominique Grimaud makes you listen to the The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and many more artists from the 1960s, like you never hear before.
The title says it all: "19 Feedbacks". French multi-instrumentalist and sound experimentalist Dominique Grimaud dives into his adolescence and the 1960s, when he discovered music that he could identify with and that would stay with him for his whole life. But "19 Feedbacks" it's not just about memories or music, it's about feedback. The beginning of the use of feedback on pop and rock songs throughout that decade and beyond.
It helps – of course it helps – that Dominique feels and knows what he's talking about. He lived those years. He knows the energy and the momentum and the historical breakthroughs that were made every time a rock band pushed the boundaries of commercial approval. He uses samples of feedbacks from that era and builds beautifully enigmatic sound-pieces around them.
Some of those samples/feedbacks will be very recognizable. It's not worth telling because it will spoil the experience of listening and dive into "19 Feedbacks". It's better if the listener isn't expecting them and enjoy the ways Dominique explores them and reintegrate them into modern experimental music.
Although it carries that experimental side, "19 Feedbacks" normally feels as a freeform library music. Tracks like "Out Of The Sand" and "Green And Blue" carry a beautiful ambiguity of handcrafted electronic sounds thought for an electronic library of sound, to be or not to be used for a movie, radio or television. While others, like "Soft Voice" or "18 Tides" dwell along the ambient spectrum.
Some tracks carry a more electronic momentum. Dominique adapts the "19 Feedbacks" to fit different styles and he wasn't trapped in the gimmick side of working around such specific samples. It's a brave new world of sound escapades and sonic ventures. You never thought you would hear the Beatles, Stones, Captain Beefheart or Pink Floyd sound like this.
A veteran of the French underground, Dominique Grimaud (born 1950) started his musical activities in 1970 with an improvisation and happening group formed by Jacky Dupéty. The group performed under the name Camizole until 1978. In that year, it merged with the group of Gilbert Artman Lard Free. Then Dominique Grimaud created with Monique Alba the duo Video-Aventures, whose first album ranked second in the charts of the magazine New Musical Express. Gilbert Artman,
Jac Berrocal, Han Burhs,
Guigou Chenevier, Cyril Lefebvre participated in this album.
Dominique Grimaud has been a fan since 1974 of analog synthesizers and the first samplers. From the 1990s, he integrated into his musical palette the sounds and techniques of the Delta blues, notably with the Franco-American quartet Peach Cobbler (with Rick Brown and Sue Garner). In the 2000s, he returned to electronic sounds and samples to perform solo or with guests. He has recorded several albums for French and American labels (with
Pascal Comelade,
Pierre Bastien,
David Fenech,
Michel Doneda, Christophe Petchanatz ...) Since 2012 he has formed a duet with the drummer Véronique Vilhet (ex-Johnny Be Crotte and ex -Royal de Luxe).
In addition, from the years 1977/1978 Dominique Grimaud chronicled the French musical underground post-68 by publishing the books
Un Certain Rock (?) Français Vol. 1 and vol. 2 (9h17 productions). He has written in several journals and co-wrote with Eric Deshayes
L'Underground musical en France (Le Mot et le Reste editions, 2008). From 2005 to 2013, he also assured, for Muséa-Gazul, the artistic direction of "Les Zut-O-Pistes", a discographic collection dedicated to the French underground.
