The last evening gives the exceptional presence of Kevin Richard Martin, better known as The Bug, for the performance of his latest solo album, Black.  An intense work that pays homage to Amy Winehouse, who tragically passed away in 2011, as a “tombeau” of baroque memory, a work dedicated to the death of a deceased person. Dominating the composition is the reprise of the sound material of the song Back to Black released by the British singer in 2007. Kevin Martin presents the project as a meditation on evanescence, on the mystery of the void left by the artist’s tragic passing. What remains is the evocative emotion provoked by the sonic ghosts that filigree the carcass of Back to Black, as the author writes: “Fragmented states of mind and hypnotic drones merge together as its circular enchantment drifts, floating in an infinite void … where the original remains only in spirit.” The musician continues with these poignant words, “She left too soon, she left too young, a world-weary voice, pulled into a downward spiral, Amy Winehouse seemed trapped in her self-destructive descent…. The album is a treatise on lovelessness, tragedy and loss, echoing the absence of an essential support network during such a free fall. I have been working on this idea for more than a year, the slow dreamlike images remain as blurry and impressionistic as they are repetitive and disturbing… An anguished cocktail of ghostly jazz, shoegaze drone and reverberated ambient.”

As an effect of the season’s greatest chiaroscuro, the first part features Lisa Morgenstern on piano, synths, voice and live electronics in an intense and evocative performance. The expressive immediacy from the Bulgarian-German artist brings out the exuberance of a hymn to life and jubilation in the act of making music. Her art blends classical training with a contemporary approach to electronics and songwriting. The daughter of two orchestral musicians, Morgenstern was involved with music from an early age and showed a natural affinity for the piano. She also trained as a teenager as a professional dancer, which gave her music a unique elegance and poise. Her music is characterized by an approach that reflects a nostalgic whiff of romantic motion and an intensely emotional performance style.