Tim Mariën "uproots" our listening experience, he challenges us as listeners. Through the use of unconventional musical tunings we become strangers in his music where we can still feel at home. Mariën cherishes recalcitrant sound materiality. The composer retunes and reconstructs instruments to make them play unique timbres and microtonal scales.
This portrait album presents works that Tim Mariën has composed since 2001 and which have been performed by Tiptoe Company - in collaboration with ChampdAction-, Ictus and Ensemble Temporum. The modular composition A Basement Suite, from which the album takes its name, invites us into Tim Mariën's cabinet of wonders of sound ideas that is as strange as it is attractive.
The composer speaks
"Now that the album is out, I'm very proud of it. It's a record I would have bought when I was sixteen!"
"I organized my first concert with some of my compositions myself in a local jazz club (Hnita Jazz Club in Heist-op-den-Berg). One of the pieces on the program was 'Melissa', in which I played an old acoustic guitar that I had converted into a 16-string instrument. A guitarist who was present at the concert introduced me to Tom Pauwels, guitarist and artistic director of Ictus. Later the ensemble performed a number of performances of 'Melissa'. I also gave my own interpretation of a number of works by American composer Harry Partch at the request of Ictus. During that period (2010) I wrote 'Toeënwâs', which was recorded by Ictus at Dada Studios in Schaarbeek."
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