9/20/2021

Thomas Tilly — Codex amphibia (Phonotaxis)

 

To my mind, the French composer Thomas Tilly has released a very interesting album. It's not a piece of pure music or something composed in a traditional way. This work is a rather unique hybrid of electronic composition, field recordings, and science.


Codex amphibia (Phonotaxis) has been recorded and mixed between 2016 and 2020 in French Guiana and France. For this album, Thomas Tilly collaborated with Antoine Fouquet, the specialist in herpetology from The French National Center for Scientific Research, during the frogs explosive breeding phenomenon, which took place in French Guiana during 2016-2018.

Finally, Thomas Tilly managed to create a beautiful sound work, quite minimalistic, elegant, and deep at the same time, using original frog sounds recordings in combination with electronics. Sometimes it sounds very atmospheric, sometimes noisy, and even rhythmical in some tracks. In conclusion, I'd like to say that the combination of pure nature sounds, carefully arranged and mixed with electronics produced an excellent result! The album is also available as a compact disk, packed in a nicely decorated digipack.