Invited in September 2011 by sound engineer Philippe Teissier du Cros, double bassist Bruno Chevillon spent two days improvising alone in the Lutheran Protestant Church of Bon Secours in Paris. The building is as much a protagonist as the player — its acoustics shaping every bow stroke, every silence.

Twelve tracks traverse extremes: commanding attacks that send sonorities boomeranging through the nave, hushed melodic arcs, raucous physical confrontations with the instrument's body, and the existential pause of distant street sounds allowed in from outside. Two pieces (tracks 3 and 9) were improvised in a single take over field recordings from Bali, played through headphones without warning. Each piece is offered as a gift — not a dedication — to an artist long present in Chevillon's inner life: Barry Guy, Stefano Scodanibbio, James Turrell, Marina Abramović, Romeo Castellucci, Peter Zumthor, David Lynch, Todd Hido, Richard Serra, Giacinto Scelsi, and others. The music does not portray them — it travels in their direction.

Bruno Chevillon has been a central figure in European improvised music since the early 1980s — a longtime associate of Michel Portal, Louis Sclavis, Daniel Humair, Paul Motian, and Tim Berne, among others. États de lieux is only his second solo album, following Hors-Champs (2007). Liner notes by Bill Meyer.