Nicoletta Favari and percussionist Christopher Salvito, known collectively as Passepartout Duo, thrive on creating works derived from unique instruments and processes. Their previous full-length releases, Vis-à-Vis (2020), Daylighting (2021), and Circo Pobre (2022), derived from original concepts that translate into music that excites, inspires, and transcends. It’s experimental music in the truest sense of the word, but also manages to be truly enjoyable and oddly melodic. For their latest, Argot, the concept may be complex to get a handle on, but the results are deeply satisfying.
Described on Bandcamp as “a deep investigation on how we communicate and collaborate with electronic devices… a reinterpretation of the synthesizer as an intelligent talking machine”, each of the songs on Argot feature a mirroring of mystical electronic textures traced onto the surface of traditional acoustic instruments. Conceived as a studio album during a residency at the Electronic Music Studio (EMS) in Stockholm using the famous Serge modular synthesizer from the 1970s, Argot introduces the synth as a co-writer, making the songs often feel discovered rather than composed.
It does seem like a vague and complicated concept to the average listener (present company included), but the results are a rewarding experience. This music is sometimes mysterious, calming, jarring, exciting, and always adventurous. Fans of Frank Zappa‘s Synclavier excursions will find plenty to appreciate in the opening track, “Get Along”, which fuses piano and synthesizer notes in scattered clusters that seem to bridge the gap between baroque and electronic.
The occasional musical guest drops in to accompany Favari and Salvito – a first for the duo. “Colorful Quartz” features Japanese flutes – the shinobue and nohkan – performed exquisitely by Yuta Sumiyoshi alongside the gentle piano and electronic notes. Alex Fournier contributes double bass on the sinister alien jazz musings of “Uncommon” and the odd, playful “It’s Just a Thought”. The string quartet Invoke add an ethereal layer to “Kissing in the Park, Briefly” and sober gravitas to the aching “Viols and Violas, in Mus”.
Those outside contributions significantly add to this unique album’s overall tone and texture. However, it’s often Favari and Salvito in Stockholm with the modular synthesizer, finding interesting and compelling ways to bring together piano and electronics, like on the knotty “Much of a Sunflower”, in which processed sounds come off as sustained and soothing alongside the jittery piano notes, or the sparse, elegant “Back in Time”.
What makes Argot such a pleasant surprise is that the concept itself sounds on paper like it would simply come off as brainy blasts of weirdness (and yes, there’s plenty of that); it’s also disarming, achingly beautiful, and a pure sonic joy. Experimental music is too often dismissed by many as cold and calculated. Passepartout Duo are here to tear down that myth.