Modular soundscapes French style
Who they?
French singer and composer Hélène Vogelsinger uses her hypnotic, beatless soundscapes to explore different places, both inside herself and around the wider world. The fruits of her modular synth labours, in the form of debut album ‘Contemplation’, are a modular classicists dream.
Why Hélène Vogelsinger?
Sonically, Vogelsinger evokes a long lineage of French electronic experimenters, from Jean-Michel Jarre to Space, philosophising big ideas through sound. This is classic electronica for the mind. ‘Contemplation’ is exactly what the title suggests – “a personal soundwave diary describing her inner worlds”. Each track is connected intimately to a time and place. For the opener ‘Astral Projection’, Vogelsinger had intended to use the “impressive ghost space” of Canfranc International railway station, nestled in the Spanish Pyrenees. Composing the main elements on the secluded mountain journey, only to find the station inaccessible due to renovation, she found another abandoned rail side building in which to record. The resulting session and video is intriguing, the location as fascinating as the composition.
Tell us more…
Starting composing music at an early age, Vogelsinger has absorbed a wide range of influences, not least from her time spent living in Beirut, which had a profound effect on how she heard the world. Returning to France aged 19, her journey to ‘Contemplation’ began, first living in Paris, in and out of bands and genres and finally leaving to live in the calm of the countryside. She now focusses heavily on her sound-craft, completing an Orchestration for Film and TV course at Berklee Online, adding further theory to music that, for her is very much about feelings. All this lends itself to her complex sonic worlds, and as more becomes apparent about her as an artist, there will be so much more to explore.
‘Contemplation’ is out on Modularfield
