My Compositions
The Pieces I Composed
You’ll find below the two main categories of albums I composed: Chroniques de l’Autre Monde and on-demand work.
“Chroniques de l’Autre Monde” (“Chronicles of the Other World” in English) is a series of 3 albums gathering pieces I composed to illustrate my novel “Chronicles of Galadria”. It’s basically the book’s soundtrack, although the music can be (and is usually) enjoyed as is and even used in other projects – see “Derivative Work”.
Chroniques de l’Autre Monde are the reason I began composing music.
If you’d like to know more about this (including why I picked this strange name instead of “Chronicles of Galadria – Original Soundtrack” or something similar) and about my musical work in general, feel free to check The Backstage!
My very first album, back in 2008.
Most pieces were created on Big Boss first, before I reworked them with Cubase SX3 and its much higher quality banks of virtual instruments and extended mixing capabilities.
I also took that opportunity to improve the structure of the pieces, but my lack of knowledge at the time in both sound engineering et music composition is obvious: average sound quality, music with very basic structures, use of the same few instruments…
Still, the album found its audience and allowed for my work to be discovered, which in turn led to some people contacting me to work together.
Every piece in this album from 2009 was created from the start with Cubase SX3, along with new banks of virtual instruments I had obtained on purpose.
The experience accumulated in both music composition and sound engineering allowed me to create more advanced musical structures, to use a greater variety of instruments, to improve the overall power level and, all in all, to deliver a much higher quality.
This album turned out to be rather successful, especially the track “Adieu” (Farewell), which is often quoted as my best piece and has gathered dozens of thousands of views on YouTube, along with various fan-made covers.
Last album in the series (despite its name!), from 2012.
Every track but one are remakes from the original 2008 “Chroniques de l’Autre Monde” album.
After “Chroniques de l’Autre Monde II”, it became clear that there was a gap between the quality of the very first album and its sequel, and I decided to fix this. I put into this project everything I had learned throughout the years so that the end result would match my vision, without having to compromise because of a lack of knowledge or tools.
It took me 3 years to complete this album, because of new priorities, ideas, and projects. It demanded a lot of work, and I was no longer sure I truly wanted to invest the time and energy needed. In the end, though, I chose to complete it before leaving music composition behind me… for the time being.
Throughout the years, I’ve been contacted to compose the soundtrack of various audiovisual projects. So here are 3 albums gathering some of the tailor-made pieces that resulted from such partnerships.
They’re all independent of each other, and each track can also be enjoyed as is, outside the project it was created for. Some have even been used in other undertakings – see “Derivative Work”.
Why only 3 albums?
Because some projects were never completed, others were based on music from “Chroniques de l’Autre Monde”, and among the projects that were actually completed and that feature tailor-made pieces, I only deem those from the following 3 albums interesting.
If you’d like to know more about this and about my musical work in general, feel free to check The Backstage!
My first tailor-made piece, in autumn 2009, following a request from Etienne Hallaux, who needed music to go with his slide-show on the Orion constellation.
The project turned out to be a real challenge: first because Etienne had a very clear idea of what he wanted and communicating it via e-mail (he from Belgium and me from Sweden) wasn’t an easy task, and second because it was a slide-show, meaning every image had to be perfectly synchronized with the music.
So this piece demanded a lot of work, some of it rather boring (changing a whole part because the atmosphere didn’t fit, having to add or take away small bits to match the pictures…), but all in all it was a very interesting experience with a very interesting man, who unfortunately passed away in September 2012, just after we uploaded his work online.
In the end, we were both satisfied with the result, even though it became more mysterious/poetic and less romantic than what he initially had in mind.
Essentiel(le) 1
Essentiel(le) 2
Essentiel(le) 3
This was the first time I worked on an actual movie soundtrack, in winter & spring 2010, following a request from Yoann Peter, who wanted me to create the music for his three shorts.
This project was very interesting from an artistic point of view. First because Yoann only had a general idea of what he wanted, so we discussed a lot (via e-mail only, which certainly didn’t help), found ideas together, and he gave me enough room to experiment. Second because he was looking for something very new for me: no orchestral symphonies here, instead he wanted experimental music, dark and electronic (to suit the atmosphere of the films).
In the end, even if those pieces may not be the most exciting ones to listen to as they are, composing for movies and in a new genre was a true test of my abilities!
Music composed in 2010 as the main theme of the audio saga “The Legend of Mendrock”. Unfortunately, it was never used as far as I know, and the saga itself (which already had 3-4 episodes) is no longer available either.
I was asked to create a dark but epic song, that would give an overview of what the audience should expect from the show; something closer in terms of instruments and structure to what I had done before (compared with the other two requests), but with a slightly different atmosphere.
As an interesting aside: the creator of this audio saga had used my song “Liberté” (album “Chroniques de l’Autre Monde II”) in an episode, and when I found out about it, I dropped a line in his visitors book to thank him. He answered, and we started to work together!
I was planning on composing the entire soundtrack; a tempting idea at the time, especially since the format of the show meant I didn’t have as many constraints as with movies, while the fantasy theme was pretty close to what I was familiar with through “Chroniques de l’Autre Monde”. However, we ended up losing contact, so we’re left with the main theme only! Besides, with hindsights, I came to realize that would have demanded just too much time anyway.
You can freely listen, download or even use my work for your projects as long as:
• My name is mentioned somewhere as the composer
• You do not modify the pieces (but using only parts of them is ok)
• You do not earn money with my music
If you wish to use my work for money-making purposes, please purchase a license.