Vis-à-Vis
Music for handmade portable instruments / Vinyl LP with AnyOne
Combining spellbinding musical rituals, introspective lamentations, and otherworldly ambience, Passepartout Duo’s first full length album Vis-à-Vis is inspired by a spirited year of travels and encounters.
Making use of a portable set of instruments designed and built by the duo out of scrap wood and metal found on the streets of Geneva (in addition to keyboards, synths, and percussion), the group premiered the music during a month-long train journey from Switzerland to China.
The album contains two pieces that spring from material of the same origin, evolving, reshuffling and realigning through the extensive use of hocket techniques and metric modulations. Mirroring one another, the two included tracks fill each side of the LP without pause, conveying a patchwork of prismatic timbres underpinned by a tightly woven rhythmic fabric.
The album is produced by AnyOne, the Chinese art company and record label founded by Yannis Zhang and Yumo Wu. Created from multiple superimposed layers of cut and printed paper, the artwork of the album illustrates the concept of its musical counterpart. Each of the album’s layers can be playfully recombined to highlight new variations in both color and shape, continually revealing a different perspective of the object as it moves from one face to the next.
Vis-à-Vis was written and recorded in Geneva, Shanghai, and Beijing at the Embassy of Foreign Artists, the Swatch Art Peace Hotel, and Semi-Underground Space.
Vis-à-Vis Tracklist
Side A: Heartwood (17’38”)
Side B: Vis-à-Vis (17’17”)
Released April 10, 2020
The Instruments
Including a small electric lyre, the amplified tines of a toy-piano, and two amadindas in metal and wood, the instruments used in Vis-à-Vis were made by repurposing materials that could be found on the streets of Geneva.
Even with all the idiosyncrasies that came with these DIY creations, a framework for the composition process spun out from the simple constraints of the instruments themselves.
The portable handmade instruments were developed to easily pack into the small bags that Passepartout Duo carries around the world. During a month-long train journey from Tbilisi to Shanghai, Vis-à-Vis was performed everywhere from family homes and music conservatories to the roof of an old caravanserai.
