Titakti the disc
by Philippe Le Goff |imed_9524-0001|
To Sophie
“Men go by many paths. Those which they follow and which they compare
will give birth to figures which seem to belong to this great ciphered
writing which one sees everywhere: on wings, on the shell of the egg, in
the clouds, in the snow, in crystals and in rock formations, on the waters
which turn to ice, inside and outside the mountains, plants, animals, men,
in the lights of the sky […], in the filings around the magnet and in the
singular junctures of chance…”
— The Disciples in Saïs, Novalis
These four Studies are the fruit of my immersion in the Inuit culture of
the Canadian Arctic; the country where there are no trees. Upon entering this
world where nature bears down with all its weight on life, where the boundary
between art and games is tenuous and words are used sparingly, the necessity
of a ‘speech of sounds’ imposes itself. In this world, the relationship
between the sonic environment, language and music is such that
electroacoustic work takes on its fullest meaning. The sounds, inextricably
connected to life, begin to breath of themselves. The result is that this
speech of sounds generates a work where music, Inuit conversations, laughter,
the wind and the light exist side by side and intertwine. In traveling
through these Studies, I sought to weave the sounds into a living material,
endowed with breath and with a soul, as have humans, the animals and the
elements.The term ‘study’ (étude) underlines the speculative nature of these
works. It is a line of work that, without being properly scientific, is
nonetheless supported by investigations into Inuit culture and language. The
result is a personal and poetic reading of this world. It should be
understood as an autobiographical account. The form of this account is based
on a particular trait of the Inuit culture in which one can create a new myth
by the linking together of pre-existing myths. This is also characteristic of
games and chants. These Studies are therefore an attempt to create an
agglutinative and integrated musical form.
The CD title Titakti is a term belonging to moderm
Inuktitut. It refers to ‘white music’ and is used mostly on Baffin Island.
The word probably is an onomatopoeia where titaktitaktitakti… would
be the way to sing the music of the whale hunters. This fact was told to me
by Leah Nutaraq (107 years old) from Cumberland
Sound (Baffin Island).
Philippe Le Goff, Paris (France)
[i-95]
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