Impressions et Évocations (1989) — J.-L. Nest & J.-M. Collet

In 1989, Jean-Luc Nest and Jean-Michel Collet recorded Impressions et Évocations after having joined the French collective Terra Incognita. J.-L. had spent his exile from the Glimmerlight further immersing himself in the sounds of his synthesizers (as augmented by the special power of his Blue Crystal), beginning in 1978 and later exploring the digital synthesis pioneered by Wolfgang Palm. J.-L. understood synthesis as a means of reconstructing sounds and frequencies recalled from the electric subterranean world he had lost. J.-M., however, was human, a percussionist from the Strasbourg music scene who worked with tabla, zarb, gong and tam-tam, those most human of instruments, whose sounds were tactile, their vibrations created by physical touch. Together they created what the cassette's j-card described as an electro-acoustic environment of “aquatic sonorities,” joining J.-L.’s synthesized recollections with sounds J.-M. drew directly from the instruments of the Patchoulilight. Across the two extended pieces, “Évocations” and “Impressions,” their different languages gradually became inseparable: memory encountering matter, and the lost world encountering the one that remained. . . . Among the Sagegazers, Impressions et Évocations came to be regarded as one of the most special recordings created in the Patchoulilight. Its union of remembered frequencies, tactile percussion and flowing, aqueous sound seemed capable of carrying something across the distance separating the survivors of the Glimmerlight. The copies that reached the Offworld Colony had a profound impact upon listeners who heard impressions of a world they remembered in J.-L.’s sounds, and evocations of an Earth most would never know in J.-M.’s percussion.  For me, Impressions et Évocations remains one of the most extraordinary artifacts from the Patchoulilight, and perhaps my personal favorite. . . . The Sagegazer knows that when the currents of two worlds meet, each may discover in the other a part of itself. 0:00 Impressions 20:38 Évocations