The triangle

New look, the triangles

If this is the first time you're landing here, or if you've known me for a while, either way you're probably thinking this makes no sense: why am I making a triangle with my hands? It's a small tribute to two things: an idea and a band.

The band

This is the easy part. The band Angine de Poitrine, hugely popular lately, has completely captivated me. The staging, the costumes, the mystery, it's stunning. But musically, it's an absolute trip. They combine impossible time signatures, constant rhythm changes, wild and yet incredibly precise at the same time.

The characters

Khn plays some kind of siamese instrument, a guitar and a bass fused together, clearly handmade, because it's not just that they're joined and decorated, it's that the neck is packed with frets for playing microtonality (the notes between the notes), which creates a dissonance you don't quite get on first listen, but that becomes incredibly addictive and hypnotic. On top of that, there's this spectacular skill with a sampler (a pedalboard) that layers bass and guitar over and over until every pattern you thought you recognized gets completely destroyed.

Klek is the drummer, and he must genuinely be from another planet, because his command of time signatures isn't remotely normal. He's the one who reshapes every riff. While Khn builds the pieces, Klek transforms them into something else entirely with constant shifts in meter. Beyond the sheer skill, the sound he gets is also spectacular, with an incredible power that makes you jump.

And now, the triangle, why the triangle. Well, they've built this whole scene around extraterrestrials, beings from another planet where the greeting is forming a triangle with your hands. This has done two things: it gets the crowd interacting, returning the greeting, building a shared sense of community and mutual feeling. And on top of that, the greeting keeps your phone out of your hand, so you can enjoy the show 100%, without bothering anyone with gadgets.

I won't go into more detail. There are a million websites, videos, everything you could want about them out there. Just know they're wonderful and I'm completely obsessed.

The idea

At the start I said this all came from an idea and a band. Now for the idea. Really it's a cluster of ideas, but I just call it that: the idea of now.

Freshness, immediacy, the moment: these are pillars I respect above almost everything, and the photo I have captures all of it. Taken in a second, without thinking, greeting my favorite band, eyes fixed on some hypothetical stage (or planet), wearing my Debian t-shirt. Pure love for the things I care about.

Why in English? Because I'm learning. That's really the only reason, it's a way of forcing myself. (Though to be honest, this first post had a lot of help.)

Having said all that, I'm starting a new chapter, and I want my website to come along with me. I'll be writing about my research, my crazy ideas, whatever I feel like, starting mostly from a technical angle, but I know everything else is going to sneak in too.

Welcome to my little universe.