Mellow sounds with gloomy overtones, blurring the frontier between the organic and the synthetic. This is how you could describe a certain slice of Paris' contemporary musical underground, spearheaded by DIY producers and leftfield labels alike. This episode of IndieRE, produced by Radio Campus Paris in collaboration with Planisphère, shines light where darkness lingers, namely in the music of Morfine, Didem Coskunseven and the duo Omer.

Morfine is one of the aliases of Estelle Morfin. Combining activities as an artist, radio host, DJ, label founder and journalist, she has released two EPs under the name Roman Delore, as well as the album Blinding Nights as Morfine. Didem Coskunseven is a composer, sound designer and musician from Istanbul who studied composition at the University of California in Berkeley. Now based in Paris, she studies composition and computer music at Ircam while creating works as influenced by modal jazz than by contemporary ambient music. Omer is the duo of Tristan Hamelin Foulon and Jason Bancilhon. On their first album Polyphon, they translate bird song into a score, put a piano through autotune and experiment with musical traditions ranging from Erik Satie to German industrial pioneers Einstürzende Neubauten.

Created in 2018 with the goal of bringing into the spotlight up-and-coming artists of the experimental music scene, Planisphère organises underground events and releases albums and EPs by new and inventive artists. While experimentation is a guiding principle in sound as well as image, their aesthetic spectrum is deliberately large. Abrasive techno sits alongside intimate folk, ambient and noise neighbour jazz and space rock.

Featured artists/producers and labels:

Planisphère: bandcamp | soundcloud | facebook | instagram
Morfine: bandcamp
Didem Coskunseven: soundcloud
Omer: bandcamp

Playlist:

01 Morfine – Shapes
02 Morfine – Dark Stars
03 Morfine – Credo
04 Didem Coskunseven – Ext.thewoods.night (interpreted by Ensemble Nikel)
05 Omer – Pièce pour Automate
06 Omer – Les danseuses
07 Omer – Huit heures douze

Produced by Radio Campus, Paris.
Prepared, produced, mixed and announced by Philipp Fischer. Morfine & Didem Coskunseven interviews by Philipp Fischer, with additional questions by Eglantine Laval. Omer interview by Luc Bydon and Matthieu Turcq.
Design by Jure Anžiček.