Onset and upbeat to a comprehensive history of Le Placard (1998 — )

Freely improvised and non-academic electroacoustic music {as}[by] urban folk[s] ~ part 5

from: Emergence at the frontiers and in fringes & trenches of contemporary music

Thinking of one of the first of many Placard events to which I contributed as a performer (the 24 hour Sound Injury Placard that started on the 21st of June 2003), brings back the memory of a very early morning twilight view up from the street, the rue de Belleville in Paris’s 20th arrondissement, to the brightly lit open windows of the Parisian apartment on the building’s second floor that hosted the event. It was the day of the summer solstice. That first day of summer, is also that of the Fête de la Musique, a ‘World Make Music Day’ that currently is celebrated almost all over the world. In Paris the tradition was initiated, in 1982. The apartment was packed with boys and girls, most of them relatively young adults, moving about, leaning out, sipping beers, smoking, ... They seemed to be having a party up there. A party, yes, but the party seemed without music. It was a party without sound. We stood and looked up, for minutes at a stretch. And we really could not hear a thing. Then a glass came tumbling down and fell to smithereens on the pavement’s stones. The short high crackling sound of breaking glass briefly echoed across the street, like an explosion. Then all faded back into silence…