“Musical love at first sight” is one way to describe the genesis of the duo formed by Chloé and Bulgarian percussionist Vassilena Serafimova. An impromptu meeting that has since turned into a lasting collaboration, culminating in the release of their first joint album this fall after four years of on-stage and in-studio complicity.
Chloé and Vassilena Serafimova met in 2017, through Sourdoreille – a cooperative of journalists and videographers who share a love of contemporary music – who invited them to take part in their electro-acoustic live series Variations. After an artist’s residency at Xavier Veilhan's Studio Venezia during the Venice Biennale, they decided to extend the experience and continue facilitating a dialogue between the marimba’s suave tones and the effervescence of machines.
Their first album together, Sequenza, is the fruit of a harmonious collision between two worlds that usually remain at a distance from each other: that of electronic music, generally associated with the chiaroscuro of clubs, and of art music, which usually basks in the light of prestigious concert halls. But while mixing genres is often a perilous exercise, in this case it makes for one potent cocktail – one that is as airy as it is melodious.
This musical fusion, fed by numerous back-and-forths between studio and stage, results in sunny compositions, which borrow as much from the creative intuition that they deploy on stage as from the individual visions they instill into each of the pieces.