Antonin De Bemels

She did try to appreciate his music, to understand it, but she never succeeded. Apart from when he made music for contemporary dance, because she liked dance, although she didn't like to dance. But she did like to sing, however, as much as she enjoyed the art of song. And she sang—sometimes—on her own, in the House. Until he asked her to stop. Because he found it embarrassing. The truth of it was he also wanted to sing, but he couldn't. And now she's gone, and he's still here, and their House continuously carols and hums with both their silences.

Composed by Antonin De Bemels

Arranged and produced by Thomas Turine

Mastered by Antonin Simon

When he was a child, he didn't like it when she sang, so he asked her not to. Now that she's gone, he thinks it wasn't fair of him. She took good care of him, when he was a child. She encouraged him. She read his first poems and stories with pleasure, even when she found the topics or settings a little odd. And when he started making masks, in his father's workshop, she was proud. She thought it was a good way for him to express his inner self.

antonindebemels.bandcamp.com/album/recomptinuum

Produced by Antonin De Bemels

Double bass by David Christophe

Mastered by Antonin Simon

"ReCOMPTINE Bis" is the latest variation on "COMPTINE", released almost a decade ago on a Thin Consolation compilation. It was my first - and maybe too prudent - attempt at ambient techno, and I felt the need to push it further. The second and third variations were born during sad and strange times, for me—the most important love story of my life was coming to an end, my mother died, and I was drinking too much—and for everybody—we were merely recovering from the so-called austerity policies and the pandemic took us by surprise, locking us away from each other and from the dancefloors for quite a while… But then, the clubs reopened, the love of my life became my best friend, and I managed to take control of my drinking problem. So this ultimate variation is bouncing with a renewed energy and sparkling with hope, its melancholy still lying in the back, only to keep tracks of where (we) I come from. In short, let our sweat and tears—of both joy and sorrow—flow freely on the dance floor!

https://antonindebemels.bandcamp.com/album/recomptinuum

Produced by Antonin De Bemels

Mastered by Antonin Simon

Christophe brought his semi-acoustic guitar, but the battery was flat. So he used the Moog, the one Olivier had borrowed from a friend. Olivier wasn't there at the time, but Antonin thought that what they had done lacked drums and borborygma, so he asked him to record some overdubs. He also asked Philippe to play some cello. That is how this track came to be.

Buy it if you like it: https://antonindebemels.bandcamp.com/album/doctobre

"J’ai été adorée par le soleil

Et battue par la pluie

Malmenée par les vents

Et fourbue par les courants

Parfumée du suc des fleurs

Et recouverte de l’humus de la terre

Mais la lumière dans tes yeux

Et le frisson de nos peaux

Comme mille soleils éblouissent mon chemin

Et ravivent mes sens

Jadis paralysés par le froid" (Shantala Pèpe)

https://antonindebemels.bandcamp.com/album/doctobre

Christophe Seval on synth

Antonin De Bemels on groovebox

Olivier Taskin on drums

Hugues Devos on flugelhorn

Shantala Pèpe on spoken word

Edited, mixed and mastered by Antonin De Bemels

Drums arrangements by Olivier Taskin

Image by Stéphane Jossart

« I can feel the limits of my body, and when I push them aside, I feel it. When I try to do too much, to go above and beyond myself, I feel it.

I am a mother. I am no longer a lover — I’ve lost that. That leaves me with a lot of free time I haven’t yet figured out how to spend. What else am I?

For the moment, I am nothing. But you shouldn’t limit yourself to the tiny patch of ground beneath your feet. You’ve got to dig. Wake up every morning and realise just how exposed you really are. Feel it crumble a little more every day, thinking back to yesterday and everything you said. Regretting it. Watching all those pictures of bodies laughing and moving in a wholeness that eludes you — like a scene from a movie. And being there, in the midst of it all, and not knowing what to make of it. Trying to fit into a shape that’s constantly changing. Should you adapt?

Looking at yourself, once again, at that tiny, grimy navel that’s grown so wrinkled and dusty with time that you can’t even see the bottom of it anymore. What’s the point, anyway?

When I look up at the world, it all seems too much — too full, too fast, too much for me. There’s so much we’re expected to be. So much we’ve got to be. Too much being, perhaps. Perhaps I’m just too full of being after all. And in this discrepancy, I find myself either above or below, always with a posture, a stance. You’ve got to take up a position, to have a position, to be something in all its dimensions and express it — assert it. But I can’t. Assert what? What should I assert, exactly?

Talking to people, meeting them, going out — it's as if I’m trying my hand at the world. As if I need to confront what I feel deep inside, thrashing about. But what I feel — does it have a meaning?

It’s as if I’m coming out of my cave to test myself, to see if I’m not entirely dead. And then I go back in, and then I come back out. These comings and goings — I often think they don’t make any sense. They hardly mean anything at all and could take any shape or form. But what I need to do, what I have to do, is to validate my existence. Because being alone so much makes me wonder if I really exist. Sometimes it feels like little paw strokes, like a dog trying to attract attention: “Hey, look at me. I’m here. Do you remember me? You are the reason I exist,” says the little dog.

That’s what I mean. »

Written by Nathalie Vanderlinden, translated by Frederic Aerden

Set to music by Les Antonymes, which were, this time:

Philippe Van Bellinghen on cello and piano

Frederic Aerden on processed field recordings

Antonin De Bemels on groovebox

Recorded on August 13, 2023

Mixed and mastered by Antonin De Bemels

Image by Stéphane Jossart www.stephanejossart.com

"Dust in the eyes of the world. A hand opens and closes on emptiness. A body reaches for the ground. Feet detach themselves from the ground. A tense face crashes into the dust. A thousand grains of dust - of sand - embed themselves in the face of the fallen body. Cries arise, like anxious silences; cries like bodies falling towards the sky. Anxious silences etched into the tense faces. Silence reigning over the bodies that fall in slow motion."

Original version improvised by Les Antonymes, which were:

Philippe Van Bellinghen on cello

Frederic Aerden on processed field recordings

Antonin De Bemels on groovebox

Edited, mixed and mastered by Antonin De Bemels

Recorded in August 2023, remixed in February 2026

Image by Stéphane Jossart www.stephanejossart.com

Composed in the winter of 2018, in the eye of the storm, after the end of one story and perhaps the beginning of another...

"What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from." T.S. Eliot

Image: Pierre-Paul Prud'hon (1806)

00:00:00 Mélancolie douce jingle

00:00:33 Jacques Bertin - Je ne donne que l'amitié (dit par Jacques Doyen)

00:02:19 David Bowie - Changes

00:05:48 Mano Solo - C'est en vain

00:08:19 Cat Power - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction

00:11:24 Mark Hollis - Watershed

00:16:51 Jacques Bertin - Ils savaient (dit par Jacques Doyen)

00:18:05 PJ Harvey - Before Departure

00:21:43 Eddie Vedder - Long Nights

00:24:08 Joan as Policewoman - To Be Lonely

00:28:57 Agnes Obel - Louretta

00:30:58 Two Gallants - Threnody

00:40:27 Procol Harum - Pandora's Box

00:43:15 Mano solo - Dis-moi

00:46:14 Mark Hollis - The Colour of Spring

00:49:38 PJ Harvey - When Under Ether

00:51:51 Antony and the Johnsons - You Are My Sister

00:55:45 Agnes Obel - Riverside

00:59:30 Two Gallants - Waves of grain

01:08:55 Agnes Obel - Wallflower

01:11:17 Mark Hollis - Inside Looking Out

01:15:54 Joan as Policewoman - Real Life

01:20:26 Shannon Wright - Heavy Crown

01:23:53 Asaf Avidan - Thumbtacks in My Marrow

01:27:04 Shannon Wright and Yann Tiersen - Dragon Fly

"The last one to come to the House was Shelbatra. She liked the piano, and the piano liked her. It made itself understood. How it should be played. How what it keeps hidden can be roused. She had things to say. So she did."

https://antonindebemels.bandcamp.com/album/la-douceur

Improvised by Shelbatra Jashari

Recorded and mixed by Antonin De Bemels

Mastered by Yvan Hanon

Image by Stéphanie Paulus

"Antonin was the first. He sat down and played a few notes. Struck a few chords. Closed his eyes. Recorded what was roused. And then edited what sounded wrong or useless or trite. Making movies like he does teaches you to do that. To distinguish, afterwards, between what is sensible and what is not."

https://antonindebemels.bandcamp.com/album/la-douceur

Composed and mixed by Antonin De Bemels

Mastered by Yvan Hanon

Image by Stéphanie Paulus