Cécile Schott, who records and performs as Colleen, is no stranger to this column and TVD’s year end Best lists. Initially coming to prominence as a skilled player of the viola da gamba, on her recent albums that instrument has been set aside as she excelled at wedding experimentation and song form. But on her latest effort, a 2LP set consisting of seven instrumental suites, Schott limits her tools to a single Moog synthesizer and two delays. The results are striking and often deeply beautiful, standing as a breakthrough for both Schott and her chosen instrument. Le jour et la nuit du réel is out September 22 through Thrill Jockey.
Cécile Schott’s last album, 2021’s The Tunnel and the Clearing, was amongst that year’s very best. It’s brilliance was such that one could speculate that following it up would prove daunting, particularly as The Tunnel and the Clearing was itself a follow-up to a masterpiece directly prior, 2017’s A flame my love, a frequency. In short, the significant change of direction established across Le jour et la nuit du réel could’ve easily been an attempt to relieve the pressures of high expectations.
But this assumption doesn’t take into account Schott’s movement away from the viola da gamba, as that instrument was a major component in her work through 2015’s Captain of None, her first recording for Thrill Jockey. Additionally, as Schott’s discography is marked by constant growth, it’s easy to accept the artist’s statement that her new record, which did begin as songs with lyrics, morphed into sound synthesis (that is, no acoustic instruments) sans vocals due to Schott’s growing cognizance of the impossibility of grasping “all facets of reality, especially one’s own emotional reality and that of others.”
For Schott, sound synthesis was the best way to express the impossibilities of fully ascertaining reality. Le jour et la nuit du réel is her first purely instrumental album since 2007’s Les Ondes Silencieuses, though her choice to use only the Moog Grandmother (a monophonic semi-modular synth), and two delays, the Roland RE-201 Space Echo and a Moogerfooger Analog Delay, is a new development. However, it’s important to note these instruments aren’t new to Schott, as she’s worked with samples, loops, and instrumental processing in the broader landscapes of her earlier work.
What’s screamingly clear across these seven suites is Schott’s thorough comfort inside these self-imposed limitations. Each suite features a movement that is played numerous times but with different synthesis settings, with the combination of familiarity and variation heightening engagement inside each suite and across the record as a whole.
Scanning the track list prior to listening might instill a sense of intimidation, as four of the suites have three movements and one suite has four. But after numerous listens, the record flows miraculously well, in part because Schott’s approach is wholly forward-thinking, with a lack of throwback maneuvers on an instrument that is still too often thought of as a relic in the history of electronic musical innovation.
This is not to imply that Schott shies away from the Moog’s distinctive analog ambiance. To the contrary, she often embraces it, but does so in service of compositions that eschew bland nostalgia for the sincerity of the aforementioned human themes. Le jour et la nuit du réel is warm and inviting as it plays, but just as Schott engaged with the viola da gamba outside of the parameters of baroque precedent, her approach to the Moog is invigorating.
What’s maybe most impressive is how Schott’s artistic identity shines through. Le jour et la nuit du réel can be considered a sizable (if not radical) departure, but it’s still Colleen. It’s the latest addition in one of the most exciting bodies of work of the 21st century.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A
