Known for his film music composed with his brother, Sacha, Evgueni Galperine deploys an intimate and hypnotic first solo album. And which echoes the surrounding global chaos.
“It’s neither jazz nor classical music. But the album is sublime. we had been warned. In fact, it is unclassifiable, unheard of. Upon opening, Theory of Becoming, by Evgueni Galperine, bewitches with a sound drawn from the depths of the ages, a sort of wail prompted by some Leviathan. And up to the clausule, dedicated to Loplop, the strange bird of the surrealist painter Max Ernst (1891-1976), astonishment follows fright, compassion to joy, the magic of childhood to enigma of the future.
Pour Evgueni Galperine, Theory of Becoming represents a sum at the same time as a first step. Known for his soundtracks — with his brother Sacha, he notably designed those of Lack of love by Andrei Zviaguintsev in 2017 and The Event by Audrey Diwan, four years later — he waited until he was 48 to attempt this kind of musical self-portrait. Born in 1974 in Chelyabinsk (Western Siberia), Evgueni has always been immersed in music. His father, Yuli Galperine (1945-2019), was one of the important post-war Soviet composers. After spending part of his childhood in kyiv, young Evgueni was admitted to the prestigious Gnessine Conservatory in Moscow, where he studied until 1990, when the Galperine family left the USSR to settle in France. While his father continued to perform his works throughout Europe, Evgueni entered the CNSMD in Paris in 2000. Quickly noticed, he began to compose for the theater, , finally the cinema (about fifty soundtracks in 20 years). Theory of Becoming is his first recording of “pure” music, not linked to images. To achieve this, Galperine collected sounds and melodies for three years, then processed them “by pitching, lengthening, accelerating, slowing down…” Thus was born a music of a staggering spiritual height, both complex and powerfully evocative. Seduced, Manfred Eicher, the legendary founder of the ECM label (Keith Jarrett, Arvo Pärt…) immediately wanted to publish the album.
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