Enfant Magique
Le Temps Lent

Slowing down time with Eric Gingras

The simple acoustic guitar plucks out a lulling back-and-forth, accompanying a voice that seems to arrive from another, far-off era. Elsewhere, the guitar moves around in the background, repetitive and drawn-out. But here, alone, it takes the time to find its rightful place, much like the deceptive simplicity of a hand-made quilt. This humbly whimsical patchwork seeks out form, succeeds, and is reunited with the voice. Articulate and elastic, it sometimes crisscrosses, sometimes circumnavigates this landscape of song both subtle and rich. Its clear lines of flight point to a remote village and its recent arrivals, a motley crew of hybrid things and beings: woolly sheep, beat-up robots, small synthetic drums, minimalist jaw harps, obsessive alarms, light footsteps on a gravel path, a few propellers, many layers of slow time.

The sea’s waves break against this shoreline where our mutant from the 1970s seems to have washed up. He isn’t looking for a fight, and he isn’t looking to show off. However, as the custodian of utopian leftovers from an open agreement between artifice and artful making, he is clever and skillful in a thousand and one little ways. His voice is stubbornly discreet, but also able to take flight, carrying with it words devoid of preciosity and over-categorization. This is a voice that prefers attention to affectation. Bresson-like, it knows how to recount when recounting is needed, articulating both quivering fatigue and deep doubt.

Joined now by others, the mutant feels supported, loved. He withdraws, and an assertive, childlike voice moves into the foreground. The mutant accompanies, discreet but fully present. And what better medium for this finely woven poetry and play of childhood’s expression, both clumsy and bold.

- Anne Lardeux (translated from French by Simon Brown)