Paranormal Music Chamber JB Dunckel

• JB Dunckel (b. 1969):
• 1 Melo Walk (Version for String Quintet) 03:47
• 2 Shine (Version for String Quintet) 02:45
• 3 Ballade oiseau (Version for Flute and String Quintet) 03:06
• 4 Dolphin (Version for String Quintet) 03:34
• 5 Désintegration (Version for Flute and String Quintet) 04:48
• 6 Prélude marin (Version for String Quintet) 04:28
• 7 Golden King (Version for String Quintet) 03:15
• 8 Key Games (Version for String Quintet) 04:56
• 9 Égérie (Version for Flute and String Quintet) 03:22
• 10 Yokai (Version for String Quintet) 01:56
• Total Runtime 35:57

Info for Paranormal Music Chamber

JB Dunckel first created these pieces through a highly organic process of spontaneous composition at his piano for his 2024 album Paranormal Musicality. Now they take on a new dimension, perhaps one of the many unknown potentials they held from the very beginning. The initial burst of creativity —revealing a passion for impressionism, romanticism and minimalism—now blends with a meticulous science of arrangement, resulting in a work of art painted with soft and welcoming contours.

First and foremost a “rêveur d’harmonies” (“dreamer of harmonies”), JB Dunckel has teamed up with composer and pianist Harry Allouche to create these arrangements for a string quintet specially formed by five musicians from the Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Paris. Double bass, cello, violins and viola—sometimes joined by flute—significantly broaden the sonal spectrum of the pieces, while still preserving or even amplifying their original sensibility, freedom and momentum. JB Dunckel describes the melodies “like flowers” in how they have bloomed into new colours and fragrances. Paranormal Music Chamber yields to an insistent desire for simplicity and minimalism, a quest for beauty that takes different paths depending on the composition: from the airy fluidity of “Shine” (and its pizzicati) to the enveloping melancholy of “Melo Walk” or “Dolphin”, from the liveliness of “Key Games” to the almost-dissonant unease of the aptly named “Désintégration”. The program paints changing and contrasting landscapes, where the light falls differently in each one.

While simple and accessible, Paranormal Music Chamber is nonetheless an incredibly sophisticated album, the result of rigorous work at every stage of its conception: from the arrangements, incorporating very subtle percussion, to the mastering by Alex Gopher, who laid a “veil of comfort” over the recording. The production and mixing involved the use of machines (delays and compressors) and an ingenuity found in pop and contemporary music, as envisioned by Max Richter. These methods bring various lengths of reverberation into play, depending on the instruments or the way they are played. It is no easy feat achieving a work that is at once modern and complex, yet uncomplicated—a showcase of heartfelt and deeply human melancholy.

Musicians of the Paris National Opera Orchestra

JB Dunckel
Known as a solo artist and the co-founder of the hugely influential duo Air, Jean-Benoît Dunckel is a mastermind of stylish, sensual, and ethereal pop.

Before becoming a professional musician, he studied maths and physics, and went on to form Air in 1995 with former bandmate, Nicolas Godin. The duo soon earned acclaim for their seminal 1998 debut album Moon Safari, and the soundtrack to Sofia Coppola’s 2000 film The Virgin Suicides.

While he and Godin worked with Charlotte Gainsbourg on her 2005 album 5:55, Dunckel embarked on a solo career, and his 2006 album shared the hazy atmosphere and lush synth passages as his Air work, but also explored Dunckel’s fondness for more straightforward pop and rock.

When Air went on hiatus in 2012, he founded the sci-fi pop act Tomorrow’s World with New Young Pony Club’s Lou Hayter, and Starwalker, a duo with Bang Gang’s Bardi Johannsson.

Whilst continuing to make and release albums with Air, and as JB Dunckel, he also began to score TV and film productions on his own. His scores include François Ozon’s acclaimed Summer of 85, which saw him nominated for a Cesar Award for best music, the Netflix series’ Mythomaniac and The 7 Lives of Lea, the critically lauded The Good Teacher, and For Night Will Come.

Alongside his score work, 2024 saw Dunckel release his first solo piano album, ‘Paranormal Musicality’ on Warner Classics, as well as writing and recording his first-ever ballet, Möbius Morphosis, a monumental work blending electronics, percussion and mixed choir. The ballet was commissioned as part of Paris’s Cultural Olympiad, in collaboration with renowned choreographer Rachid Ouramdane, and brought together over 100 acrobats, dancers, and choir members on stage.

Air are currently on a world tour to celebrate the 25th anniversary of ‘Moon Safari’, and performed at the closing ceremony of the Paris Olympics 2024.

This album contains no booklet.