State Music by Laurent Güdel
Laurent Güdel is coming back with a new album, beautifully mastered by Francisco Merino and edited to a vinyl.
When approaching this album – I wanted to put aside all the background notes and everything that is the context of the creative process behind it and immerse myself in the actual music.
With such models of synthesizers such as Buchla 100, Buchla 200, Serge, you can more or less expect the type of music that will be presented here. But here’s a twist – Laurent leads a master class for us how to creatively use those instruments and steer away from the clichés of the modern electro-acoustic music which is created through tools such as modular systems.
His compositions have a unique structure – scintillating way to show how different way of dynamics and being able to create it, sustain it and master it can have a tremendous effect on how to engage the listener.
And it worked beautifully. There is no single sound here that is unnecessary – Laurent is truly a virtuoso in creating the layers of sound that don’t overlap needlessly and make absolute sense in an overall pattern of his compositions.
An excellent album if you want to detox yourself from academical smoke and mirror-type of intellectual overgrowth and dive deep into music that breaks the boundaries and is absolutely timeless.
Over the past years I visited several historical music studios in Stockholm, Belgrade, Athens, Den Bosch and New York, working on early analogue instruments: Buchla, Serge, Synthi 100, some test equipment and the RCA Mark II that hasn't functioned since 1976.
I recorded corridors, opened windows, interviewed people, visited archives. The result: six electroacoustic compositions and a hybrid text, part essay, part political critique of the institutions that promoted electronic music in the 1950s–70s.
Writing was a way of examining my suspicion toward these bourgeois early electronic musics, and of asking what might remain emancipatory in what they represent for me today.
Introduction detailed on: laurentgudel.ch/state-music-lp
A : The Missing Computer
Studio : EMS - Elektronmusikstudion, Stockholm
Instruments : Buchla 100, Buchla 200
Recorded : January 2019
B : People's Synthesiser
Studio : EMS - Elektronmusikstudion, Stockholm
Instruments : Serge modular system... more
credits
released May 1, 2026
Music & text: Laurent Güdel
Mastering: Francisco Meirino
Design: current matters
Proofreading: Ellen Lapper, Aladin Borioli, Thibault Walter, Laure Federiconi & Mikael Dürrmeier
Copy editing: Laure Federiconi, Ellen Lapper, Lisa Yahia-Cherif
Translation: Ellen Lapper & Aladin Borioli
Published by Arrière-garde & Insub.records, 2026
Thanx to: Armeno Alberts, Henry Andersen, Daniel Araya, Gilles Aubry, Mari Bastashevski, Nicolas Bolay, Aladin Borioli, Spyros Boukas, Rikkert Brok, Mari Carrasco, Eve Chariatte, Pierre Charmillot, Antoine Chessex, Seth Cluett, Vincent Devaud, Mikael Dürrmeier, Julia Eckhardt, Mats Erlandsson, Laure Federiconi, Sixto Fernando, Chri Frautschi, Lionel Gafner, Dimitri Jeannottat, Marie Jeanson, Gabrielle Karlsén-Beretta, Olga Kokcharova, Hans Kulk, Antoine Läng, Ellen Lapper, Nicolas Leuba, Clara Levy, Mats Lindström, Svetlana Maraš, Costas Mantzoros, Anna Meadors, Francisco Meirino, Barbara Meuli, Aggelos Mitsios, Marion Innocenzi, Nick Patterson, Laurent Peter, Ariane Plomb, Nick Podgursky, Caroline Profanter, Philippe Queloz, Raphael Raccuia, Anna Maria Rammou, Nicolas Raufaste, Simon Riat, Louis Riondel, Vincent de Roguin, Ksenija Stevanović, Ezra J. Teboul, Serge Tcherepnin, Katerina Tsioukra, Thibault Walter & Peter Zinovieff.
AMEG – Association pour la Musique électroacoustique (Geneva), Arrière-Garde (Biel/Bienne), CAN (Neuchâtel), Cave12 (Geneva), Cinéma Oblò (Lausanne), Computer Music Center – Columbia University (New York City), EAC Les Halles (Porrentruy), Electronic Studio of Radio Belgrade (Belgrade), EMS – Elektronmusikstudion (Stockholm), Festival Archipel (Geneva), IPEM – Institute for Psychoacoustics and Electronic Music (Ghent), Insub.records (Geneva), KSYME-CMRC – Contemporary music research center (Athens), Lausanne Underground Film & Music Festival (Lausanne), Les Ateliers du Simplon (Renens), Librairie A13 (Biel/Bienne), and, of course, Lokal-Int (Biel/Bienne).
The RCA Mark II Sound Effects Unit circuit analyzed and modeled as a wave digital filter by Kurt James Werner, based on measurements and research by Ezra J.Teboul, with assistance and support from Seth Cluett, Emma Azelborn, the Columbia University Computer Music Center, iZotope, and the Institut Français / the FACE Foundation. With the help of Robert Torche, this digital version of the "Victor" filter section was used as a max for life plugin on the track "Infrastructure & Superstructure".
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