Maxime Denuc — Elevations (+ Kris Verdonck)

Maxime Denuc is a French, Brussels-based composer of electronic music. In 2022, he impressed internationally with his album Nachthorn, a collection of minimalist pieces for automatic MIDI organ. Because such organs are rare (there are only a few in Belgium), Denuc created his own mobile organ in collaboration with iconic organ builder Tony Decap from Herentals. This new instrument is the starting point for Elevations, an installation he is creating with scenographer Kris Verdonck.

Elevations is inspired by dub techno, a music genre born in 1990s Berlin. Dub techno intersects minimal techno with Jamaican dub, from which it derives its use of delay effects. Because of its foggy aesthetic, dub techno is akin to the melancholy of the end of a party, when bodies relax and day redeems night.

But in Denuc’s Elevations the usual electronic sound of dub techno gives way to the acoustic sounds of organ pipes. Tony Decap's monumental instrument is designed as an eight-meter-long row of organs. Each of the pipes can be controlled individually, allowing for endless musical possibilities: from dense harmonic clouds of sound to fragile breaths.

Scenographer Kris Verdonck (A Two Dogs Company) was in charge of the scenography, consisting of three light bulbs rotating. Complete darkness and bright light, slow and fast movements alternate. The instrument and scenography play independently, humans are no longer involved. The machines replace humans in one of the last places one would hope we would be irreplaceable: acoustic music. The whole breathes the atmosphere of an almost deserted, early after-party.