The project Les arbres reveals my fundamental musical intention: to abolish boundaries. Boundaries between complexity and naivety, between pop and serious music, between electronic and acoustic music, between noise and melody.

Soundscapes and slow, woven textures accompany precise articulations, all entwined in a minimalist orchestration of guitars, brass instruments, vibraphones, accordions and strings. Since I began working in electroacoustic music, I have tried to bring together digitally processed sound textures and traditional instruments. They include the complex tones and sophisticated treatment of materials from acousmatic music merged with the simple melodies often encountered in pop music.

Nostalgia is the background against which Les arbres explores the theme of childhood, more specifically, of landscapes that partially reveal monsters and elves, landscapes that free us and close us in, that scare us, that bluster, pour, thunder, rain and storm on us.

Les arbres is part of a collaborative process with visual artist urban9. He created visuals inspired from the soundtrack while I used his images as a springboard to invent musical landscapes. The compositional work for the fixed images offered a very different challenge from composing for moving pictures. I endeavoured to imbue the works with narrative, to give a temporal dimension to these moments without time.

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Prix Ars Electronica 2009 (AU) : Honorary distinction

Prix Opus 2010 (CA) : CD of the Year, Electroacoustic/Actuelle