Hector Zazou

Hector Zazou is one of the most innovative and unpredictable of French composers, as the versatility of his career demonstrates: rock music (the Barricades band), French impressionist music (the ZNR duo) or traditional African music (three albums with Bony Bikaye). Whether for string quartet, wind instruments, classical voices or synthesizers, all his compostions illustrate his passion for unexpected inventions.

With the 1991 album “Les Nouvelles Polyphonies Corses” —which won France’s Victoires de la Musique in 1992— he successfully experimented with blending century-old a-cappella songs with contemporary music from collaborators such as Jon Hassell, Ryuichi Sakamoto, John Cale, Richard Horowitz and Manu Di Bango.

The album “Sahara Blue” (1992) is a tribute to the French poet Arthur Rimbaud, with Gérard Depardieu , David Sylvian, Bill Laswell, Khaled, Dead Can Dance, among other guests.

With “Songs From The Cold Seas” (1995), inspired by the folk musical traditions of the Northern Hemisphere, Hector Zazou invited the best-known local singers like Värttina, Tokiko Kako, Vimme Saari, Inuits and Shamans, to sing with Suzanne Vega, Björk, Jane Siberry and Siouxsie Sioux, among others.

“Lights In The Dark” (1998) – is an exploration of sacred Celtic music from the XIIth century, which featured three of the most beautiful Irish voices (Katie Mc Mahon, Breda Mayock and Lasairfhiona Ni Chonaola), a gospel choir and guest appearances by Mark Isham, Carlos Nuñez, Caroline Lavelle and Peter Gabriel. A successful tour followed in France (Printemps de Bourges), Italy and Switzerland (Montreux Jazz Festival).

“12, Las Vegas Is Cursed” (2001), written with American singer Sandy Dillon, saw the return of Hector Zazou to electrical instruments and unbridled experimentation «A flabbergasting baroque opera, a series of intriguing sonic scenes mixing electronic rock and altered chamber music » Keyboards Magazine

Next came “Strong Currents” (2003) – an acoustic collection of songs that was the fruit of several years’ work (with Jane Birkin, Lisa Germano, Laurie Anderson, etc.)

And then “L’Absence” (2004) - Strong Current’s electronic twin.

“Quadri{+}Chromies” (2006) with its almost contemporary tones, is the result of a two-year collaboration with the painter Bernard Caillaud. The musician lets the colours be heard and the painter, the sounds be seen.

In “Corps Electriques” (2008) – an adventure initiated by the GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales in Paris) – Hector Zazou and English singer Katie Jane Garside lead Nils Petter Molvaer’s trumpet and Bill Rieflin’s percussions into a strange world on the borders of electronic, rock and jazz music.

This amazingly rich and eclectic career brings to light the pioneering aspect of Zazou’s unique approach and confirms his position in the foreground of the world music scene. But his work is not limited to studio work. In 2003, he wrote an extremely powerful score for Carl-Theodor Dreyer’s “La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc”. Some months later, he created an original soundtrack for Robert Flaherty’s documentary “Nanouk of the North“ (both commissioned by the Forum des Images in Paris.)

Hector Zazou has proven himself as a creative force behind several unusual projects and a unique musical arranger and director often called upon for his constant capacity for innovation.
He has been commissioned to write pieces for everything from string quartets (like the Balanescu Quartet) to contemporary dance performances, and was even tapped to compose the music for the opening night festivities of the 1998 World’s Cup.

Hector Zazou’s inventiveness as a producer has also been put to the service of other musicians. To name but a few of the numerous artists he has produced, are the Tibetan singer Yung Chen Lhamo (on the Real World label), the Galician bagpipes player Carlos Nunez, two albums of music from Uzbekistan, including “Yol Bolsin” with the singer Sevara Nazarkhan (once again for Peter Gabriel’s label) and the Italian group PGR (Universal) whose album, produced by Hector Zazou, was hailed by Italy’s music press as a “masterpiece.”

Hector Zazou will finish producing the new album of Bulgarian vocal quartet Eva, whose spirit happens to be very close to « les Nouvelles Polyphonies corses ».

Hector Zazou regularly performs live with “Joan of Arc” and “Quadri{+}Chromies”. He is also part of the “Slow music” band (with Bill Rieflin, Peter Buck, Robert Fripp and Matt Chamberlain). His project called “Swara” features Uzbek and Indian musicians and invents a new language between oriental scales, raga, and electronic handlings of acoustic sounds.

Swara is a new take on world music and welcome us into a subtle and poetic world in the form of a hall of mirrors in which sounds bounce on the walls and endlessly echo from one wall to the other.

The last project he worked on is an album entitled In The House Of Mirrors, in which he offered a new take on classical Asian music,subty reprocessed with a nod to some of the music produced in the '70s by Terry Riley and Fripp & Eno. In The House of Mirrors was recorded in Mumbai with the collaboration of four outstanding instrumentalists from India and Uzbekistan, as well as guests such as Diego Amador and Nils Petter Molvaer. This album came out only a few weeks following his untimely death in September 2008