Vrishti [CF:510-07713]

In Sanskrit, the word Vrishti means "rain" and in the Hindu context, the work evokes (divine) light falling on the world like rain, the influx of luminous thoughts. Vrishti is a manifestation of superior consciousness in our life, a spiritual fullness. This piece is based on a mantra to Siva I once heard in Jaisalmer (Rajasthan) in July 2008. M. Rupendra Gopa Ji allowed me to record his vocal performance. The in-depth study of this mantra revealed important factors (temporality, rhymicity, intonation, articulation, agogics) that influenced my own compositioin, showing through the surface as a far-off echo in filigree or as a faint trace like a thermal imprint or a fossil light. For the performer, the most tangible traces of this palimpsest-like process are found in the constant change between binary and ternary meters, and in the 27-strophe structure that follows the original design and proportions of the original mantra. --Bertrand Dubedout