Tour'n'sol Prod.
« Soleil d’Hiver » is combining oud, electronics, visual arts and magnetic tapes.
Soleil d’Hiver is Grégory Dargent’s new creation in which, he explores the use of an Arabic instrument in a contemporary setting, in a gesture that draws a parallel with his family’s heritage. As the son of a « pied-noir » spurned from Algeria, nostalgia and its inheritance are at the heart of his questioning. Has he not sought to recreate an aesthetic world in order to heal a nostalgia that is not his own?
The oud player Grégory Dargent brings together music, effects, photography, magnetic tapes and video, using all the tools at his disposal to get to the heart of this quest for memory.
Alone on stage, he is accompanied by magnetic tapes and images captured during his travels. Soleil d’Hiver unfolds in several layers, each embodying a stratum of memory. The oud played live represents the present moment. The electronic treatments are ghostly trails embodying nearby memory. Finally, magnetic tapes and projections of films made in the Arab world represent distant memories. These layers reflect the alteration of memory, between fantasy and reality.
The magnetic tapes contain recordings and field recordings he made for this creation, showing an orchestra of young oud players from Baghdad playing, an ensemble of Moroccan ghaïtas, or avant-garde artists from Lebanon, Egypt, Turkey and Greece. These elements, mixed live, superimpose their sonic imprints on electronic resonances and images.
Grégory Dargent‘s cross-disciplinary approach is the fruit of a rich and eclectic career, which explains the choices he has made and the direction he has taken with Soleil d’Hiver, which appears to be the culmination of an artistic and human quest.
Electric guitarist trained at the Strasbourg Conservatoire, Grégory Dargent discovered the oud at the age of 20, on an anonymous B-side of a pirate John Coltrane cassette. Having studied Fred Frith, Marc Ribot, Thelonious Monk, Arvo Part and Olivier Messiaen, he discovered a game, a sound, an instrument. After a few weeks of obsession, he found the identity of the mysterious artist: Alla, a fabulous Algerian oud player from the Béchar region. A passionate self-taught musician, he immersed himself in records by Alla, Mounir Bachir and Riad al Sunbati, searching for a vocabulary that would link his musical culture to that of the Arab lute. He became a virtuoso of the oud, taking it down a highly personal path. Notably, he was the first Westerner to win an award at the Qatar Oud Festival in 2017.
Alongside his music experiments, he discovered photography. There he found the literature he had been missing in his music. The work of Michael Ackerman, Klavdij Sluban or Masahisa Fukase had a profound effect on him. Analogue photography offers him a relationship with abandon that links him to his sound gesture. In fact, he describes himself as an improvisational photographer. His first book, H, based on his multiple explorations of the vicinity of the ground zero of the French nuclear tests in the Algerian Sahara, was hailed by the critics. He won a prize at the Planches Contacts festival in Deauville, exhibited at Galerie VU in Paris and will be one of Fisheye magazine’s photographers of the year.
In 2020, during the lockdown period, the discovery of micro-controllers, lasers and other sensors opened up new perspectives to him. Day and night, from scratch, he built his first scanner for super8 and 16mm. Grégory also built a module to direct his images in tune with his instrumental gestures. These are just some of the tools he will be using in his new work.
A passionate leader, he founded L’Hijâz’Car, H and Electrik Gem, all of which gathered critical acclaim. His latest project, SIHR, released in May 2024, was conceived with Tony Elieh, Wassim Halal and Fréderic Oberland.
As a director, he produced Houria Aïchi’s Les Cavaliers de l’Aurès and Manu Théron’s Sirventés. He directed Tumulti, an electric and hypnotic project with Maria Mazzotta, and produced the album by the duo JeanneMarie. A sought-after arranger, Grégory orchestrated a modern Breton repertoire for the Orchestre National de Bretagne in 2017.
He accompanied Babx, Camélia Jordana, L, Piers Faccini or Rachid Taha, and regularly composes for cinema, theatre and dance.
Soleil d’Hiver, a WINTERSONNEN production. Co-produced by Le Gueulard plus (Nilvange), Théâtre Molière Scène Nationale (Sète), Le Chauffoir (Chateauroux) and Jazzdor (Strasbourg).
Grégory Dargent - oud, machines, magnetic tapes, videos, photos
About ‘SIHR’ (2024) :
The Wire
‘SIHR is a model of multi-genre synthesis that values its sources rather than finding the lowest common denominator. It’s incisive and distilled, the multiple fusions not forced. (…) All in all, SIHR is a splendid album, a contemporary classic.
Brainwashed
« SIHR is as raw, explosive and unpredictable as a howl of anguish. It really does have the cathartic feel of an end-times dance of death in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, as flaming birds fall from the sky (and I sincerely doubt any other album released this year can lay claim to such a thing). »
Télérama
« The album fell like a meteor on our desk. Contraband, certainly, and we liked it. With no outward signs, slow corruptions and vague explosions, this radically different record proves to be richly expressive. »
About ‘H’ (2018) :
TTTT – Télérama
« Abrupt, almost conceptual music, but which makes sense with the book’s magnificent black and white shots, of black deserts in dusty skies, irradiated by a raw and poetic light. »
Songlines UK
« A powerful and creative look at these tragedies by oudist and photographer Grégory Dargent. »
L’intervalle
« Grégory Dargent constructs a theatre of shadows, noticing traces left on leprous walls by a blinding flash. »
France :
Institut du Monde Arabe, Cité de la musique de Marseille, Les Suds, Jazz d'Or Strasbourg, Babel Med, Jazz sous les Pommiers, Le Bikini, Festival Polyphonies de Calvi, Festival Météo, Théâtre Gérard Philippe, Festival Musica, Rencontres de la photographie, Théâtre Romain Rolland de Villejuif, Maison des Arts de Créteil, Théâtre de la tempête, La Briqueterie, Théâtre des Célestins, Scène Nationale d’Aubusson, Théâtre Molière de Sète, Théâtre de Choisy le Roi, Vieilles Charrues, New Morning, La Maroquinerie, La Cigale, Théâtre du Rond Point, La Filature.
Europe :
Jazz d'Or Berlin, London Jazz Festival, 12 Points Festival, Casa da Mùsica, Parco della musica, European Jazz Fest Athens, Okarina Festival Bled, Fête de la musique Ekaterinburg, Brave festival, Ethno Port Festival Poznan, Förde Fest, WOMAD Canaria, WOMAD, Berliner Philhamoniker, Paleofestival, K.E.T, Opera de Göteborg, Festival de Malte, Barbican Center London.
Monde :
Maison Batha Fès, Cairo Jazz Festival, Ibn Zeydoun Alger, Katara Oud Festival, Le Poisson Rouge NYC, Festival du monde Arabe de Montreal, Centre Culturel de São Paolo, IRTIJAL, Opéra d'Izmir.
Based in France and available for booking all year long.
