BEFORE MANY THINGS

In 2017, Abel Verheyden recorded a series of experiments - sketches of compositions created on an old, partially functional synthesizer. These pieces were then set aside for several years on a hard drive, leaving time to study, to love, and to experiment.

Eight years later, Abel returned to these archives and decided to bring some of them to completion. He preserved the most relevant structures and timbres, rewriting them as scores for acoustic instruments. By working meticulously with all the collaborators involved in the extended play, Abel sought to make the acoustic recordings as faithful as possible to the sounds of the synthesizer used eight years earlier. This approach - deliberately reversing the original compositional process - made it possible to reveal new sonic dimensions and to deepen the writing of the original pieces.

Today, the extended play is complete. It is titled Before Many Things. A collection of experiments from a bygone time, reworked through the lens of a less innocent man - archives of an era marked by adolescent cults.

The Claim (2018) is a composition for organ whose notation is inspired by the MIDI file format. Conceived as a digital document that can be interpreted by a programme, the score nonetheless remains intelligible to a musician when read in the traditional way. The choice of instrument is based on the wide variety of registers an organ offers, like a database of sounds that can be modulated within a VST plug-in. The track is part of an EP currently in production entitled Before Many Things, featuring seven electroacoustic works.