Released June 4, 2021

“Between steeples and dogs, between sky and ground, ropes are stretched in the middle of the still landscape. Strings stretched in a giant space. When the outlines of the man who maintains the aforementioned strings appear. Who polishes them, paints them, mounts them and scrapes them, descends them with his tools, sometimes on the ground and sometimes higher. His eyes are tight and hardworking, but a great sweetness comes out of their icy blue. And suddenly he abandons us as he came; he disappears, leaves the image hobbling. An unknown sadness invades us then, irrational compared to the so recent meeting. One glimpses new dramas, mystical sorrows, mice transiting from cold. Until we understand that he has just made a big turn, that he is behind our backs and that he is stretching the canvas under our eyes, whispering long stories in our ears. Then the heat rises through the belly to the heart, and you feel the wind in the strings.”

For 20 years, Anthony Béard has been abusing his electric guitar and composing in emblematic French math rock and Avant garde bands. Diatrib(a) (which will become Ni in 2009 after a line up reorganization), and PinioL: a monstrous septet gathering on stage the quartet Ni and the trio from Lyon of the indescribable PoiL. We find him lately at the initiative of projects of collective improvisations recordings as Djihâd, produced by the label Dur et Doux.

In 2019, shortly after the release of Pantophobia (fourth album of Ni), he focuses on the realization of a solo project. Abandoning amplified music for the classical guitar, the record includes four pieces with enigmatic titles composed on the instrument itself. At the same time, he devoted himself to writing a collection of surrealist poetry and it is from this back and forth between writing and music that he got the idea for the title of the album, Les contes de nulle part. They tell us stories lost between worlds, while emotion springs from the strings. Influenced by many composers of post-romantic or contemporary music like Erik Satie, Debussy, Leo Brouwer, Roland Dyens or even more pop artists like Robbie Basho. The tales of nowhere are as mysterious and colorful to our ears as a surrealist painting would be to our eyes.

Performed and composed by Anthony Béard
Recorded by Benoit Lecomte

Mastered by RemyBoy

Artwork by Martine Planet

Anthony thanks Martine, Michel, Ben, Sabrina, Kiouze, Simon, Claire, Clément, Judith.