ARCHIVES 2016 / Survival Kit

Survival kit: a tribute to the periphery. As a place to live, but also a posture to look at the world, the periphery is seen as a free zone. Going against standardised thought, it allows Serge Teyssot-Gay to escape the globalised world he regards as hostile. Escape, but never completely; the hostility created by standardisation and conformity is never-ending. With Cyril Bilbeaud, he had already highlighted this attraction for blind spots—or angle mort in French, the title of Zone Libre's first album—but for Kit de survie, he has invited artists from other peripheries from all over the world, from the edges of labelled genres. Akosh Szelevenyi's saxophone meets Médéric Colligon's brass instruments, Marc Nammour's voice meets Mike Ladd's, mixing with their hosts' riffs and patterns. This sextet likes to explore odd rhythms when our ears are used to a binary system that encourages Manicheism. Against the overwhelming means of expansion of the music industry, Kit de survie uses a weapon it cannot understand: the permanent invention that Serge Tayssot-Gay argues characterises those zones away from the centre. There, everything is built through coexistence and the preservation of differences, in a perpetual movement. Let the centre keep the norm; it is so poor compared to what the margins can do.

Serge Teyssot-Gay
A guitarist, songwriter, and composer, Serge Teyssot-Gay has always built his projects—concerts, records, audiobooks, etc—around the gaps that exist between things. As their names—Interzone, Zone libre, PolyUrbaine, Debout dans les cordages, or Lignes de front—indicate, the associations in which he takes part bring together disciplines usually separated by clear and impermeable borders. From the “painted concerts” he created with Paul Bloas to the audiobooks he composed as a member of Ripostes, Serge Teyssot-Gay likes to extend his admiration like a hand for others to take. Everything must be in the service of inventiveness. As the smallest unit that allows for exchange, the duo is the favorite form of the former guitarist and co-founder of legendary rock band Noir Désir, which has allowed him to build long-term work relationships with artists as diverse as Joëlle Léandre, Khaled Al Jaramani, Carol Robison, Casey, Denis Lavant, Lydie Salvayre, or Hamé. He has also released two solo albums, Silence radio (1996) and On croit qu'on en est sorti (2000). A fierce opponent of the system favored by the music industry, Serge Teyssot-Gay is the founder and president of the label Intervalle Triton.

This project is dedicated to Frédéric Deval, who imagined it and who passed away on March 27, 2016. 

Zone libre
Zone libre is first and foremost a meeting place for Serge Teyssot-Gay, guitarist, and Cyril Bilbeaud, drummer, who together recorded the albums Faire vibrer la chair, L'Angle mort, and Les Contes du chaos. Having always liked to play with guests, the band became known as PolyUrbaine—a portmanteau of “polyrythmie-des-zones-urbaines” (polyrhythm of the urban zones)—in 2013, when Marc Nammour and Mike Ladd joined the original core. The former writes and raps in French, the latter improvises and chants in English. Today, Zone libre has come up with Kit de survie thanks to Médéric Collignon, who plays the cornet, the saxhorn, and the bugle, and Akosh Szelevenyi, who plays the saxophone.