Chloé

Chloé has, without a doubt, led an entire generation to her electronic  music  playground –one that goes beyond strictly club and techno.

Chloé is a composer, meaning she gives life to an artistic idea. And working with electronic means allows for the possibilities to be expanded tenfold. The challenge is to keep a kind of certainty in spite of the doubts that arise throughout the creative process. It is precisely this inner  questioning,  this  contradiction  (and  the  decisions  that  provide  solutions  to  it,)  that nourish and motivate Chloé's work.

As  much  a  film  music  enthusiast  as  an  accomplished  guitar  player,  she stumbled into  the electronic  scene  early  on,  developing  an  unwavering  curiosity  for  sound  machines. Her appetite  for  vinyl  would  substantiate  a  DJ  career  full  of  subtle  explorations.  Since  her  first EP, Erosoft(2002),  Chloé,  not  satisfied  with  merely  stringing  together  purely  functional tracks, has been telling stories.

Many  EPs  and  remixes  would  follow,  on  labels  such  as  BPitch  Control,  Live  at  Robert Johnson,  Kill  the  DJ,  My  Favorite  Robot,  or  Throne  of  Blood,  and  would  open  her  up to headlining gigs at clubs around the world, having built a reputation for sets that thrill by the sense of coherence with which she reconciles eclectic styles.

An  obsessive  seeker  of  new  sounds,  she  assembles  and  blends  together  unlikely  tracks, creating subtle contrasts that come together into singular mixes. Her two LPs fit within this narrative continuum: The Waiting  Room (2007)  and  the  Victoires-nominated One  In  Other (2011),with their deft handling of aesthetics, have stood the test of time.

This  desire  to  eschew  readymade formulas, and her constant research  into musical  and human matters, gave  her  the  impetus  to  start  her  own  label,  Lumière  Noire.  The label provides her with a platform to help her protégés –a selection of artists such as Il est Vilaine and Sutja Gutierrez, whose work she fell in love with during her many travels–to hatch their projects.  That  is  because  one  of  the  main  characteristics  of  her  two  decade-long  career  is not  only  her  exacting  standards,  but  also  her  curiosity,  a  trait  that  inevitably leads  to interesting encounters along the way.

Her collaborations are the other engines of his permanent reinvention: with her willingness to  step  into  the  other  artist's  perspective,  she  seeks  to  undermine  the  pitfalls  of  facile references, injecting a  constant  element  of  surprise.  These  reconciliations  encompass  all musical  genres  and  disciplines, and  create  lasting  relationships,  as  with  the  duo  Nova Materia, whose records she now produces.

Chloé has also ventured into musical analysis, working alongside Ircam(the French institute for music and sound science,) which opened her up to a completely different reading level, encompassing everything from electro-acoustics to the spectral school, ultimately enriching her sound palette. She furthered this approach by revisiting Steve Reich for the "Variations" series  for  France  Télévisions,  improvising  in  duet  with  academically-trained  Bulgarian percussionist Vassilena Serafimova.

Forever  inclined  to  push  the  boundaries  of  her  art,  she  gladly  absorbs  any  and  all innovations,  such  as  3-D  binaural  spatialized  sound, as  with  her collaboration  with  French national  radio  (including  the  "Séquences"  collection  in  collaboration  with  its  TV  pendant France  Télévisions.)  Similarly,  Chloé  collaborated  with  Ircamon  an  interactive  live  project, "Chloé  x  IRCAM,"  in  which  the  public  was  invited  to  interact  with  music.  The  project  took the form of an ever-evolving permanent installation.

Beyond  that  still,  Chloé  works  to  set  music  to  image.  The  soundtrack  of  Lidia  Terki's  film Paris La Blanche, on which she collaborated through its short-form origins all the way to its feature-film incarnation, notably led her to compose for the first time using the oral tradition of   Kabyle   musicians,   leading   to   improvisational   ephiphanies.   She was   awarded   the Cinémathèque Française’s commission for the music of Hitchcock's last silent film Blackmail, as restored  by  the  British  Film  Institute.  The  result  is  a  humbly  subtle, yet  just, live interpretation  of  an  original  score,  which  accompanies  the  film  without  overpowering  its image.

Chloé naturally  continued  to  broaden  her  discourse  towards  the  contemporary  art  world, collaborating with Franco-Lebanese artist Anri Sala on a live score for his video "Ravel Ravel Unravel"at the 2013 Venice Biennale. This year, it is the artist Xavier Veilhan who invited her in residence at Venice Biennale’s Studio Venezia, of which he is curator, and where she will create a new play in July 2017 in collaboration with Vassilena Serafimova.

Chloé is about to release her third album Endless Revisions, an impressively rich and mature outing, on her own label Lumière Noire Records. The album cover features the work of artist Noémie  Goudal,  whose  dialectic  exploration  of  natural  and  built  environments  echoes Chloé's  sonic  landscapes.  Goudal  also  photographs  her  own  monumental  installations, which evoke the desert, the mountain, which inspired the title that serves as a title to one of Endless  Revisions'  tracks.  To  the  question  of  why  he  insisted to  climb  Everest,  English mountaineer George Mallory famously replied "because it's there. "An answer that sums up the appetite that Chloé herself has for the world around her.