Benoît Delbecq - The Weight of Light

2021 CD release. Benoît Delbecq - solo piano

« A thoughtful chill runs through the music of Benoît Delbecq, a French pianist of investigative temperament and crystalline technique. There’s a ton of compressed energy in his playing, but he projects an unflappable calm ». These lines from the New York Times in 2010 by jazz critic Nate Chinen are a pertinent description of Delbecq’s undocile music.

Delbecq is a multi-awarded Parisian pianist and composer, a trendsetter who persists in developing his ideas in a very rhythmic and multi-layered approach, bringing the soul of jazz to John Cage’s prepared piano. Delbecq may prepare just a few strings with wood sticks, then sit at the piano transforming the instrument into a percussion-and-piano ensemble.

Delbecq is curious with sound (he also uses an electronic set up for some of his projects as in Ambitronix or Plug and Pray), with the rhythm of languages, and with mutating micro-loops he names rhythm fabrics. His musical force weaves some outstanding and compelling works inspired by sources as varied as mathematics, poetry or architecture to name a few.

Since the early nineties, Delbecq’s works have received acclaim from legendary musicians such as Mal Waldron, Steve Lacy, György Ligeti, and Steve Coleman, as well as from a long list of critics, peers, and festivals curators globally.