Melaine Dalibert Vermillion Hours

Vermilion Hours blends Dalibert's minimalist piano with Sylvian's subtle electronics, creating a meditative, time-suspending soundscape.

Scattered notes stretch time, their repetitions evoking the infinite iridescence of dawn--a ritual as inevitable as it is unpredictable. Melaine Dalibert's Musique pour le lever du jour, composed over two years and completed in 2017, was envisioned as "an infinite piece," without beginning or end. Subtle, intangible, both complex and minimal, this hour-long work--dedicated to pianist Stéphane Ginsburgh--lets silence and resonance blossom into shifting colors. Released by Elsewhere Music (run by Yuko Zama), the album was among France Musique's 100 best of 2018. Its abstract cover was created by David Sylvian.

Dalibert has since performed the piece in varied settings, from dawn to dusk, leading him to craft a condensed 20-minute version more suited to live performance. During this period, he released three more albums on Elsewhere, each featuring artwork by Sylvian--an artist Dalibert first admired through his experimental works like Blemish and Manafon.

Sylvian, best known as the voice of Japan (1974-1982), has also built a significant ambient legacy, collaborating with Holger Czukay, Jon Hassell, Robert Fripp, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Christian Fennesz, and Stephan Mathieu. Their connection naturally led to his contribution on two tracks of Dalibert's 2021 Night Blossoms, subtly enriching its piano textures with electronic color.

The two new pieces of Vermilion Hours mark a culmination. With a generational bridge--Dalibert (b. 1979), Sylvian (1958), Czukay (1938)--this project reinterprets Musique in a slower, more resonant form, allowing Sylvian's restrained electronics to gently "baroquize" the texture.

Dalibert's Arabesque, also featured, embodies his systematic yet humanized approach. "Any system must be transformed organically to move us," he says. These works become landscape music--resonant, spectral, and quietly transformative.

Track Listing

Musique pour le lever du jour Arabesque Musique pour le lever du jour (Short Version) Arabesque (Short Version)