Franck Vigroux

French musician and composer Franck Vigroux creates across an expansive spectrum that encompasses electro-acoustic exploration, experimental electronics, contemporary composition, free improvisation, radio pieces, avant-garde rock, and additional forms. Although recognized first and foremost for his guitar work, he also handles electronics and turntables while writing pieces for modern classical groups. Vigroux maintains equal productivity in solo and collaborative contexts, having partnered with Elliott Sharp, Zeena Parkins, Mika Vainio, Reinhold Friedl of Zeitkratzer, and many additional figures. He launched the D'Autres Cordes label in 2002; it has since issued dozens of recordings featuring his own projects alongside those of other boundary-defying experimental musicians including Hélène Breschand and Bruno Chevillon. In 2008 he expanded the operation into a performing arts company that has staged pieces by Philippe Malone, Marc Ducret, and further artists. His solo career began with the Lilas trilogy, initiated in 2003, after which later releases such as Récolte (2009) and We (Nous Autres) moved toward increasing incorporation of noise and industrial techno textures. A 2015 collaboration with Matthew Bourne produced the Kraftwerk tribute Radioland: Radio-Activity Revisited, and his trajectory continued into noisier, post-industrial territory on 2021’s Atotal.

Vigroux joined trombonist Stéphane Trepp and soprano vocalist Cécile Rives for the 2002 improvisational recording Les 13 Cicatrices; both musicians later appeared on the Lilas trilogy installments Lilas Triste (2003), Looking for Lilas (2004), and Triste Lilas (2005). In 2007 he teamed with Japanese spoken-word artist Kenji Siratori for the limited CD-R Pituitary Desert and simultaneously issued the live album Hums 2 Terre with Elliott Sharp. The glitch-inflected solo album Récolte followed in 2009, the same year Vigroux and Matthew Bourne completed their full-length Call Me Madame (Good News from Wonderland). A collaborative 12" EP with Jean-François Oliver appeared on the Trig label in 2010, alongside the solo electronic set Camera Police, the orchestral Broken Circles Live performed by Ars Nova Ensemble Instrumental, and Venice, Dal Vivo, documenting a 2008 performance with Joey Baron, Bruno Chevillon, and Elliott Sharp.

Transistor, a 2012 collaboration with Michigan experimentalist Ben Miller, arrived together with the solo album We (Nous Autres). A further Miller project, The Din of Eon, surfaced in 2013, joined that year by Vigroux’s solo Prisme. The next year brought Tobel, his recording with Zeitkratzer’s Reinhold Friedl, the solo guitar album Ciment, and the industrial-leaning 12" EP Centaure on Shapednoise’s Cosmo Rhythmatic imprint. Vigroux returned to the label in 2015 for Peau Froide, Léger Soleil, a duet with Mika Vainio, and also completed another Bourne collaboration, the Kraftwerk Radio-Aktivität tribute Radioland: Radio-Activity Revisited, issued on Leaf at year’s end.

Solo releases Rapport Sur le Désordre and Camera appeared in 2016, as did Tobel II with Friedl. After the 2017 solo LP Barricades, Vigroux issued Ignis in 2018, a posthumous Vainio collaboration following the latter’s 2017 death. Early 2019 saw the EPs Désastres and Théorème, followed by the full-length Totem. The one-sided LP Tension 24, the Phill Niblock collaboration BestialRE, and the Raster solo album Ballades Sur Lac Gelé all emerged in 2020. The EP Matériaux arrived in 2021, succeeded at year’s end by the full-length Atotal.