Micro Siestes Vol.1

"The first time, you hesitate. Attending a concert lying in the dark feels unnatural. You sit against a wall at the back of the hall, watching. The bell rings and you don't close your eyes. In the half-light, you scrutinize the musicians gathered under the dim halo of light. It starts and it's acoustic. You clearly perceive the refined lyrics and harmonious voices mixed with the soft chords, the small beats. The exchanges are aerial, you fly away. About an hour later, you land again. You leave charmed, with one certainty: you will come back and immerse yourself fully in the experience.

Ten years and many naps later, you have found your position: lying down, relaxed, eyelids closed, ready to be carried away. You think of Georges Perec and the beginning of Un homme qui dort, which you transform for the occasion: "As soon as you close your eyes, the adventure of the sleep of the siesta begins".

You know the sensations you are going to experience and yet you let yourself be surprised. Bastien Lallemant and his team of the day, faithful or future friends*, united by an artistic complicity and a shared musical sensitivity, reinvent a new nap each time. You discover new songs and those you already know take on a different guise, depending on the way in which one interferes with the other's universe. It crosses, intertwines, entwines according to the feelings and inspirations of the moment. It is a creative laboratory, subtle and delicate dialogues, a temple of correspondences. Sounds and tiny movements resonate, a string strummed, a note held, an object caressed, a whisper hummed, a breath buzzed, a laugh stifled, a tear held back, all these details make a nap a moment apart, a privilege - something is entrusted to your ear. Around you, others, novices or not, share the secret, breaths are adjusted and the snorer is tolerated. Your body is wrapped, your mind floats, it's an emotional workshop, you doze off, you levitate.

You now have a record, two “Micro-Siestes” recorded in one Sunday, just like the real thing. You tell yourself that you'll be able to cheat a little, choose your sofa rather than your carpet, curl up in your plaid, have plenty of cushions. Or, while you're at home, try the standing nap, the dance nap, the breakfast nap... And even on a Monday. Why not ? You can also watch the images filmed by Bruno Podalydès and the drawings by Charles Berberian, at the same time or afterwards, and not even in the dark.

But whatever you try, you will find what you like so much, the precision and the fragility, the minute detail and the immense complicity, the magic in melody, the feeling of escaping, here, elsewhere... After 20 minutes, you will stretch like a cat, get out of your beautiful torpor, change sides, and start again.

Colombe Boncenne

* More than 250 artists, musicians, authors, cartoonists have participated in the Siestes Acoustiques, in France, Tahiti, New Caledonia, Quebec, Japan, Belgium, Tunisia, Morocco...)