Signed last year to the Clown and Sunset label for an EP, Anytime Will Do, Valentin Stip is a Parisian transplant in Montréal who, as could be expected of one of Nicolas Jaar’s associates, excels at appropriating all manners of music – including, in his most recent piece, “Hiathaikm,” a short passage from some piece of film music that’s as familiar as can be, so familiar that I can’t recall its name (it may be that Boogie Belgique has also recently made use of it) – and mixing them up into something rather new.
On his Facebook page he relates that he began to compose computer music (No specific genre, only what pleases my mind, he says) upon arriving in Canada, having left his piano behind in Paris – after a decade or so of playing. And, though I don’t mean to descend into pseudo-biographical “explanation,” there’s something wistful about his works, yet in them there’s also, perhaps as a compensation of sorts, quite a lot of acoustic irony, for instance in “Gravels,” as well as numerous flashes of wit, especially in “War Telegram.”
Here’s “War Telegram.”
And “Esquis(e).”
“Gravels” (i and ii).
And “Hiathaikm.”