Akusmi - Terra Incognita

Cartographers and US multinational technology corporations might think they’ve mapped out most of our big, beautiful blue planet, and yet there’s always more to discover if you know where to look.

French-born, London-based composer and musician, Pascal Bideau, takes this as his central premise on a new album of intrepid sonic exploration that delights in the sensation of being somewhere you’ve never been before. Terra Incognita invites us to seven faraway sonic imaginariums fusing global and spiritual jazz with life affirming minimalism into a hypnotic, polyrhythmic odyssey.

Ecstatic improvisations were overlaid with an array of instruments at his disposal, many from around the world, from Africa to South East Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, gathered from his own travels or brought back by family and friends. Pascal plays flutes, clarinet, guitars, bass, mbira, balafon, dutars, marimbas, zither, adungu and many other percussions. Most prominent is the alto-saxophone which features throughout: “It’s the link that connects everything together, half-narrator, half-explorer, ambling along and reacting in real time”.

Terra Incognita then is a rarified opportunity to get lost in and to find our presence of mind, to get off-grid, or even off the map altogether. “This album is a travel diary from an unexplored land: experiencing something never encountered before and the excitement that comes with it.”