Fragmenté by Marc Merza

“Fragmenté” means fragmented in French. In the fall of 2018, I spent two weeks in Paris with my then partner for holiday (pre-celebration before our move to Los Angeles), as well as performing cassette tape loops for a show at Balades Senores. For this song I was trying convey my feelings about that trip, and more specifically my daily walks from the 11th arrondissement to the Seine. We would wake up early in the morning, get fresh baguettes from Utopie and stroll to the Seine. It was a very magical time since we would enjoy the river at both ends of the golden hour; in the morning and night. I chose to title this single 'fragmented' to describe my recollection of my time there and ultimately the dissolution of my relationship.

This was prepared as an improv recording; I set up all my gear and built the structure of the song from there. Instrumentation includes: Lyra-8 synth, Monome Norns, Organelle, and clarinet. After the song was mixed, Rick Spataro mastered the track onto 2” tape and slowed the playback. I wanted to incorporate a level of melancholy and yearning in the song and think that was established by the manual tape manipulation.

Marie Clerel, a good friend and artist based in Paris, did the artwork. Her practice of cyanotypes felt closely related to my work and she agreed to make an original for the single. She wrote to me that the cyanotype was “exposed to the morning sunlight then to the parisian rain in the evening (during one single day)”. I found this poetic with the meaning of “Fragmenté”. I often think about how my sonic explorations are closely tied to my interest in photography and printmaking and how my process reflects that. I am completely honored to collaborate in some way with Marie as we have known each other for nearly ten years and I have respected and adored her work throughout our friendship.

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