Leila Bordreuil - Geophonics Leila Bordreuil

French-American cellist and composer Leila Bordreuil navigates the liminal spaces between improvisation, noise, psychoacoustics and spectral music. Beyond her solo work, Bordreuil is also a sought-after collaborator who has worked with everyone from Laurel Halo, Kali Malone and Drew McDowall to Tamio Shiraishi, Susan Alcorn and Lee Ranaldo. Across these projects, she remains committed to a music that privileges texture, presence and sonic exploration over fixed categories.
Bordreuil does not compose music in the traditional sense so much as summon sounds via the sculpting of naturally occurring frequencies. On Geophonics, she produces feedback with her cello and a bass amplifier placed against a grand piano; these vibrations then activate the piano's strings, creating dense harmonic overtones. "Feedback carries powerful psychoacoustic potential, so it's something I've incorporated in my music a lot. But in Geophonics, I push that potential further. I'm not approaching feedback as a sound in itself, but more as an instrument or a tool to 'sonify' other elements that would otherwise seem silent--in this case, the sound of air, an empty room and a piano without a player," explains Bordreuil. "There is inherent harmony in the structure of our universe--so what if we just listened to that?" Recorded in a former convent in rural Belgium, "Collision" opens with a sustained G note that reverberates like a tambura. Bordreuil's drone becomes gnarly and agitated, evoking Skullflower's electric guitar disembodiment. Soon, the music is interrupted again--this time by high-pitched squeals that Bordreuil gracefully steers as if playing a solo. The piece ends as it began--only now imbued with raw, metallic resonance. On "Soft Landing," low-end feedback interacts with the subwoofer-friendly tones of the ARP 2500, mimicking the sound of organ drones until a dissonant chord emerges almost imperceptibly. "Plateau," which reprises the G note that opens the album, combines diffuse ambient textures and Bordreuil's meditative bowing. As on the previous track, multiphonics eventually produce a chord--even as Bordreuil monastically maintains a single note. While spectral music explores the manipulation of acoustic instruments and physical space, Geophonics reveals a more natural kind of interaction--establishing conditions that allow the intervals to bloom. In doing so, Bordreuil invites the physical environment to enter her music, rather than the other way around.