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1 - Le CoQ MégalO (0'50)

2 - Brosse à Danse (2'49)

3 - La grenouille qui veut être aussi Brosse que le Goeuf (1'05)

4 - Webbed (8'08)

5 - Dervish Bee (5'05)

6 - Wasp Tabla (3'32)

7 - Rimsky-core (0'51)

8 - Mi ma la bu (5'34)

9 - Wazo (tori monogatari) (10'44)

10 - Greensleeves (1'43) trad. arr. by F.L.

11- Aye Aye Lay (1'41)

12 - Ice Cube Music #2 (6'20) Cengiz Hartlap aka Djengo

13 - Sarabande (6'44) Haendel, arr. by F.L.

14 - Sonora Flatules (?'??)

All titles composed by François L'Homer (Naing Naing) unless otherwise stated.

Brosse à Danse

I have been willing to record bullfrogs and cicadas to make a record for years... In august 99, I could get at last an MD recorder... but before I could get hold of some toad sounds, I first recorded various incongrous noises from the bathroom of a house I used to live in Rangoon.

The sound of a toothbrush is essentially rhythmic. Opening and closing your mouth produces a wah-wah-like effect... almost melodic... Many bathrooms have excellent reverb. Future toothbrush freaks will notice that the sound is drier with less or no toothpaste at all, while it becomes quite juicy with lots of foam. All is a question of balance.

The first version of "Toothbrush / Brosse à dent" was created with the precious help of Djengo Hartlap in Paris / July 2000. The present version was mixed in May 2001 at Artlap studio, Paris.

This track also countains a melody produced with the sound of a small balloon for kids when it deflates (MD take from Myanmar), toothpaste sleeve notes read by Erika Forzi (recorded in London) and gargle performed by Naing-Naing (rec. in Yangon).

The name of this track is a play of word with "brosse à dent", french for "toothbrush" and danse (dance), by Seb of the radio show "Cosmic chaos mayonnaise" in Clermont-Ferrand.

The first time I heard bullfrogs (crapauds buffles), I was wondering whether they were pigs or crows. Mystery... Surprise! Rainy season had just arrived in Yangon... Still in 97, in Ko Pha Ngan (Thailand) I got the chance to listen to a wild and chaotic concert performed by various species of amourous frogs, sounding like organic and completely a-rhythmic acid techno. Bellowing bass, whirling treble... I was impressed enough to decide to make music with toad sounds.

Download frog music

(scroll down the mp3 / m4a page)

As first experiment of frog music, Naing Naing produced "Toad Fever" (2000-2002), a cover of Elvis Presley's "Fever", but the publisher owing the rights to that song regarded it as a kind of sacrilege and refused to authorize it's release on the present CD, so Naing Naing wrote a song on its own (Webbed), keeping the same tempo and happily spent another 170 sleepless hours to edit that new frog song (2004).

"Webbed" is sung by Miss Maya a.k.a Astrid Orion (who plays together with Naing Naing in Tear Of A Doll). Apart from the singer and a few "plouf" in the water, all the rest are toad and frog sounds exclusively. The lowest sounds you heard here are digitally pitched down toads (we will not repeat this for the ice cubes, it is the same.)

Created and mixed at NN flying studio mainly in Rangoon, Paris and Mizusawa (Japan).

PS : Got the tribute to Jimi Hendrix at the end ?

WEBBED

Words & music: François L'Homer

Aaah ah-aaah...
Aaah ah aaah...

The dazzling light's fading away
It's safe to go out and sing
I'm in the mood, let's freak out
Life starts at dusk !

Come on, we'll play leapfrog
Jumping for joy
A leap in the dark
Take the plunge !

Puff out ! Puff out ! Fill with air
Inflate your throat and sing along
Creaky crooners croak, croak !
Craving for crazy little frogs

Moonlit serenade
In the mood for love at first sight
Riding a warty back
In the moonlight shade of a toadstool

Chaung Thar beach, Myanmar - 2002

It's the simplest philosophy :
If it's small, I will eat it
If you're my size, we will mate
If it's big, I will bound away

Giant steps are getting closer
Hungry for green leaping meatballs
At a scatter, every frog
goes swimming in the stream

(Fever !) Puff out ! (Fever !) Puff out !
Puff out !!! Puff out !!!

It was a great leap forward in the dark
Yellow protruding eyeballs
are gazing at you
Your warts look so soft
It is just beautiful...

Uh, so, have you ever been webbed ?
Have you ever been webbed ?
Well, I have.

Dervish Bee / Wasp Tabla

99% of the sounds used in tracks 5 and 6 were produced from a single wasp recorded in Paris. This includes all melodies (with even a canon of wasps) and all fake drums and tabla sounds. I suppose this is the first use of wasp drums and wasp tabla ever ! The only concessions to this, the remaining 1%, were flies recorded by jungle toilettes in Upper Myanmar, one low note performed by a big parisian fly and a real bumblebee (from Normandie, France) featured at times in both tracks.

"Wasp tabla" is a just a separate track and name for the end of "Dervish Bee" for direct access to the tintaal wasp tabla solo (inspired by a composition by Pandit Shankar Gosh, Calcutta, starting "dha ge te te ge ge te te ge ge na na ge re na ge te te ge ge te te ge ge na ra ge ne dhin ge ne...").

"Dervish Bee": Audio edition & programming by Naing Naing - October 2000 (Paris), January 2001 (Bangkok), April 2001 (Paris), November 2001 (Yangon & Nyaung Oo) & June 2002 (Paris).

"Wasp Tabla": made in June 2002 (Paris)

Special thanks to Djengo Hartlap for equalizing the kick, the snare and the hi-hat and to Apurbo Mukherjee and Philippe Foch for teaching me tabla.

Caution : Those insects sounds exist in nature at very low level, but once extremely amplified, they can cause grievous damages to the inner ear, putting your health at risk. Do not listen to it all day long at maximum volume.

experimental indian music
Rimsky-core

Originally made in one night in Paris (26-03-01) with a couple samples of "Flight of the bumblee bee", drum takes by Orhan Hartlap (Tear of a Doll) and wasp sound files from Dervish bee (like the canon of f wasps). and later re-worked and mixed in Yangon (Nov. 2001) while recovering from haemorrhagic dengue fever, an insect-born disease.

Boum-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum. Generator-sets-uproar is a common-feature of everyday-life in places where power-supply is not-regular or even completely-inexistent. If you ever get-there, enjoy the gene-guitar, the gene-bass and the gene-drums throughout-the-night, or bring a sufficient-provision of earwax. boum-boum-boum-boum... The present-number contains-exclusively sounds created from a single take of diesel-generator recorded in Hsipaw, Northern Shan State (road to Lashio), except the sample from Mozart's 25th-Symphony, actually a private-joke alluding to the main-riff of Assisté by Heimatlos (1985). Boum-boum-boum-boum... Unlike newer gear featuring a multi-piston engine that just produces a dumb pitch-less low-drone perfectly-useless for the purpose here, this old-model, supposedly made-in-China is a genuine mono-piston delivering a swift hammering-sound, stunning next-of-kin to a single-note-thrash-metal-palm-mute-guitar-riff-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum-boum...TECH-QUIZ : Guess how NN made melodies with a pitch-shift (the-one-that-modifies-sound-duration) without altering-the-rythm ? I just help-you too-much : boum ! soon every sound freak will copy my idea ! boum-boum-boum-boum!!!! Made in Myanmar, late 2002/early 2003 except from 3'12 made in France, August 2004.

Made in Yangon 2003 except #1: Ngapali Water Festival 2003, #6 & Greensleeves: Bangkok Nov. 2003, and #8: Paris summer 2004. (the main theme is based on a March 2001 demo).

Raw material: all birds recorded by Naing Naing in Myanmar, France, Sri Lanka & Czech Rep., except two species of thrush and a cuckoo recorded by Pecos Bill in France. Bendir (turkish percussion): Orhan Hartlap (Tear of a Doll). #2 includes Gul-Hervé's giant drum. Auto-samples are from the present album.

Aye Aye Lay

Ice Cube Music #2

"Aye Aye Lay" means « cold », « fresh » in Myanmar (Burmese), a rather pleasant concept for natives of a hot country. It is written Aye aye lay, but it has to be pronounced « é-é lé ».

"Aye aye lay" documents the birth of « Ice Cube Music » (also (un)known as « Musique de Glaçons »). The first piece of this new ice-breaking genre was made by Naing-Naing in Tôkyô in September 2000, and the second by Djengo Hartlap in Paris (October 2000), using the same Japanese ice cubes' takes.

When I arrived in Tôkyô, unlike Paris, the summer was not yet over. Akiko gave me a drink that included tap water that was unusually warm. She put a big ice cube in it, straight from the freezer, and it made a « crac ! ». I knew I had to record that sound…

Basically, there are four different sounds that an ice cube can produce in a glass : « plouf ! » when it falls into the liquid, « gling ! », when it hits the glass , « crac ! » when it breaks, but also the discreet « pssssch… » it produces when it melts.

Aye aye lay was made in one night and a half in Tôkyô (only on a laptop) with a software I did not understand some of the most basic functions yet, but which became my fave afterwards. When I came back to Paris, I showed it to Djengo, the audio software guru and immediatly, he made à son tour a piece of ice cube music: « Ice cube music # 2 » which has a more relaxed mood and includes another novelty : infra-bass made of ice cube shocks. Ice Cube Music #2 was reworked by Naing Naing in Yangon and is also featured here.

P.S. to Emmanuelle : sorry for making troubles to your fridge in Bangkok.

SARABANDE

Written by Haendel circa 1760. Performed by crickets of Myanmar. Made in Ngapali Beach & Yangon, April 2003

Additional information (not included in the CD Booklet) :

Naing Naing made this whole song from the sound of a single cricket recorded in a small town of Magway Division, Myanmar (programmed in Ngapali Beach & Yangon, April 2003).

All he did was just reproducing with digitally modified cricket sounds a score of Händel's SARABANDE, a musical piece from the 18th Century made famous by the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick's "Barry Lindon".

A funny anecdote about this track is that a ghost instrument has appeared during its mastering:

The compression of low frequencies (intended to balance insects excessive treble) turned the background noise of several cricket sound files into something slightly audible. Each .wav file being tuned to a particular pitch, this created a ghost instrument sounding like a distant organ out of nowhere (!)

Djengo Hartlap, who was doing the mastering, wanted to keep it in, arguing that such a phenomenon was rare enough to be worth listening to and that the ghost organ actually helped to recognize Haendel's Sarabande... But Naing Naing insisted on the purity of the sound ("100% cricket and nothing else") suppressed any clear appearance of a sonic ghost in the machine (you can hear it only a little in the final version).

Listen to crickets covering classic music

(0'34 extract out of 5'55)

Intelligent dance music (IDM) refers to a style of experimental electronic music with an emphasis on unconventional sequencing and processing. Notable IM artists include Aphex Twin, Squarepusher, Autechre, Boards of Canada andVenetian Snares.

(Re)Aktion Records + Dodoll Records

distributed by Acropole Records (France)

MD field recordings, composition, digital audio edition, programming & mix: Naing Naing (François L'Homer) - Flying Home Studio

Djengo Hartlap also did some programming in "Brosse à Danse" & "Ice Cube Music #2".

Mastering: Djengo Hartlap (Paris).

Sleeve, booklet artwork & logistics in France: Sedryk (Re-Aktion)

Naing Naing's music theory (excerpt):

- Any sound, either unusual or from everyday life, can become a musical instrument.

- It is possible to make a whole song from only one source of sound (tracks 3, 5, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13 & 14 + track 4 except for the vocals).

Naing Naing is the Burmese name of François L'Homer (currently residing in Myanmar) who played guitar in Heimat-los, pioneer hardcore punk in France in the 80s and in Tear of a Doll (Hardcore meets prog-rock psychedelia), also from Paris (90s).

Working as interpreter for a well-known humanitarian organization, he travels almost every other week throughout the Burmese countryside on bumpy roads that quickly kill any brand of laptop computer... Which is one of the reasons it has taken so long to complete this project...

Huge thanks to :

- Djengo Hartlap who taught me how to use audio softwares, for assistance, advices and for writing the second piece of ice cube music.

- Sedryk Re-Aktion for help to release this album when I live so far away and for all the artwork.

Special thanks to:

- Miss Maya (Tear of a Doll, Tabatha, ...) for singing "Webbed".

- Zero aka Franck Sinistra (El Justiciero, Geenomes, Fisherman, ...) for singing the ill fated-fated "Toad Fever".

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