On July 7 Systematic label boss Marc Romboy will present Reconstructing Debussy (Hyperharmonic), a live, one-take recording of a performance with the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra on December 12, 2016, featuring keyboardist Ali Khalaj and conductor Ingo-Martin Stadtmüller.
Romboy, a longtime devote of Debussy who has released top-notch collaborations with KiNK, Blake Baxter and Robert Owens, edited, remixed and reconstructed several works of his favorite French composer, ranging from “La mer” to “Prélude à l´après-midi d´un faune.”
His ambitious effort falls in line with electronic-music producers such as Jeff Mills and Goldie also collaborating with orchestras in recent years.
Obligatory press release gush from Romboy about the project:
“One sentence of Claude Debussy has impressed me a lot. And this is when he said that he was always curious and keen to explore new and unheard compositions and sounds. When Debussy visited the World Expo in Paris in 1889 he was fascinated by the pentatonic scaled Gamelan music from Java which was presented at the pavilion of Indonesia. Inspired by this he included a lot of influences into his own music notations.
“And this reflects exactly my philosophy when it comes to making my own music. As soon as I have begun to focus on Debussy’s music I instantly realized how different he was compared to other famous composers of the history. Also the usage of parallel chord figures and bitonality were remarkable attributes of Debussy’s music and this, let’s call it freedom of musical expression was the aspect which brought me to the conclusion that I have found a soul mate. And when I jammed with sound samples, notations and fragments of “La mer” I could step by step anticipate his urge to push the boundaries of musical rules. At some point I was aware of the fact that I could be able to create a bow between his original work and my contemporary style.”