Dominique Grimaud

The title says it all: 19 Feedbacks. French multi-instrumentalist and sound experimentalist Dominique Grimaud dives into his adolescence and the 1960s, when he discovered music that he could identify with and that would stay with him for his whole life. But 19 Feedbacks is not just about memories or music, it’s about feedback. The beginning of the use of feedback on pop and rock songs throughout that decade and beyond.

It helps – of course it helps – that Dominique feels and knows what he’s talking about. He lived those years. He knows the energy and the momentum and the historical breakthroughs that were made every time a rock band pushed the boundaries of commercial approval. He uses samples of feedbacks from that era and builds beautifully enigmatic sound-pieces around them.

Some of those samples / feedbacks will be very recognizable. It’s not worth telling because it will spoil the experience of listening and dive into 19 Feedbacks. It’s better if the listener isn’t expecting them and enjoy the ways Dominique explores them and reintegrate them into modern experimental music.

Although it carries that experimental side, 19 Feedbacks normally feels as a freeform library music. Tracks like Out of the Sand and Green and Blue carry a beautiful ambiguity of handcrafted electronic sounds thought for an electronic library of sound, to be or not to be used for a movie, radio or television. While others, like Soft Voice or 18 Tides dwell along the ambient spectrum.

Some tracks carry a more electronic momentum. Dominique adapts the 19 Feedbacks to fit different styles and he wasn’t trapped in the gimmick side of working around such specific samples. It’s a brave new world of sound escapades and sonic ventures. You never thought you would hear the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Captain Beefheart or Pink Floyd sound like this.