earpolitics

Solo Albums

L’Makina (2025, Corvo Records, LP and digital)

Gilles Aubry’s new album is a haunting soundscape that combines AI-generated sound textures with modular synths. Structured in two parts, the piece explores the spectral possibilities of a virtual sound model developed using a machine learning algorithm, in collaboration with Moroccan musicians Ali Faiq and Idr Basrou.

The title, L’Makina, references a 1930s song about the phonograph by Amazigh musician L’Haj Belaid. In the original song, Belaid marvels at the machine’s ability to replicate human speech with uncanny precision, prompting the poet to question whether he should continue composing verses. This reflection resonates with current debates surrounding artificial intelligence and the interplay between humans and machines.

Rbia, Harsha, Cinta by YRLNG (2024, Antibody, LP and digital)

Rbia Harsha Cinta is a dark and experimental reworking of Aubry’s recent film on seaweed and pollution in Morocco (Atlantic Ragagar 2022). The film’s dreadful atmosphere of environmental devastation is transposed into a haunting soundscape of analog textures and naked rhythms. With its title referring to endangered seaweed species, Rbia Harsha Cinta comprises eight tracks that pulse and breathe with a post-natural intensity.

YRLNG is a new project by Gilles Aubry dedicated to ambient and deconstructed club music. 

cabrón trading by YRLNG (2025, 0-0-0.space, digital)

Music by Gilles Aubry (modular synth)
Track released initially on www.0-0-0.space

Taghia, Matriphonie de la source (2024, Deutschland Radio)

The composition features sung poetry and ecological voices from the Taghia Canyon in the Moroccan Atlas. The water spring within this canyon holds special significance, revered as a sanctuary for Nana Agouti, a saint considered the mother of the community.

Diverse voices inhabit this environment, including Izlan poetry, water sounds, saints and spirits, and radio noises. The essence of the piece hinges on matriphonic transmission and interspecies co-formation, expressed in the composition through songs from three generations of women. Work songs and prayers unveil profound interconnections with the environment, in which non-human beings act as mediators between humans and supernatural forces, facilitating reciprocal exchanges. 

Gilles Aubry – recording, composition and mixing
Bouchra Errahmani – speech and vocals
Women from Agouti: Haju, Taza, Zahra and Rqia – vocals
Audrey Chen – vocals
Picture by Lina Laraki

And who sees the mystery (2017, Corvo, LP and digital)

 
Composition based on sound check recordings of Amazigh music in Morocco. Using his microphone as a sound processing device Aubry has transformed further his field recordings in the studio through performative feedback techniques.
“…The resulting sounds elicit a sense of creation and destruction, tightly bound together, held in stasis for perusal.”
— Decoder Magazine (USA)

“This is some fascinating stuff, I must say. This is not your usual layering of some water/rain/sea/forest sounds, but a rather intense trip…”
— Vital Weekly (NL)

“Feldaufnahmen von Amazigh-/Berber-Trommeln und -gesängen bilden den Kern einer weniger ethnologisch-musealen als klanglich-aktuellen Annäherung…”
— Bad Alchemy (DE)

“Voices, combined with LoFi noises, his typical microelectronics and drones create a super interesting grounded sound…”
— Diskoryxeion (GR)

“De sa nouvelle errance, Gilles Aubry a ainsi fait deux (sur)faces pleines et ravissantes.”
— Le Son Du Grisli (FR)


The Amplification of Souls (2014, Adocs, CD and digital)

In this publication, Gilles Aubry presents elements from his sonic research on Christian charismatic churches in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. He explores the noise aesthetics of religious sound practices involving audio amplification, feedback, distortion, and recording technologies. 

By focusing on the material aspects of sound, Aubry uncovers traces that attest to the complex relationships between Christian faith, traditional beliefs, neo-colonial representations, and urban politics in Central Africa. At the same time, his research draws a parallel with the aesthetics of western noise music.

The accompanying 80-page book includes an interview with Gilles Aubry by Christof Haffter, an essay by musicologist and cultural anthropologist Johannes Ismaiel-Wendt, as well as text fragments and photos from Aubry’s research in Kinshasa.

 

Echoes of Light & Darkness (2011, digital)

Audio essay on the Holly Ghost Congress, a religious event held twice a year at the Redeemed Church of God (RCCG) in Lagos. The congress offers a six-day programme of praise, worship, scriptural exposition, prayers and personal ministrations. 500’000 worshippers gather for all-night programmes in the almost one kilometer long RCCG church to celebrate Jesus in a festival-like atmosphere. The composition echoes the hundreds of loudspeakers installed in the church.

Recording and editing by Gilles Aubry
Sound commission by the project “Global Prayers – Liberation & Redemption in the City”, Berlin (2010-12).

s6t8r (2009, Winds Measure, CD and digital)

Recorded inside an empty music venue in Berlin back in 2007, s6t8r blurs the line between music and environmental audio. Through a meticulous recording process, Aubry creates a spooky post-industrial soundscape that captivates from start to finish.

“A great menacing piece of music” (Vital Weekly)

“One of the most rewarding & re-playable field recording records I’ve come across in sometime.” (Musiquemachine)

“If you want to feel like the only person alive as you wander through a monochrome version of a de Chirico landscape not knowing what surreal threats await you, this record is just the medicine you require.” (Sound Projector)

All tracks composed by Gilles Aubry.
Original 4 color letterpress sleeve designed by Ben Owen.

Les Ecoutis Le Caire (2010, Gruenrekorder, CD and digital)

Field recording composition based on materials collected during a six-week residency in Cairo in 2007.
Sound composition and mixing: Gilles Aubry
Text composition: Stéphane Montavon
Berlin Backyards (2008, Cronica Electronica, CD and digital)
 
Berlin Backyards is Gilles Aubry’s first field recording composition. He delves into the resonant space of courtyards in Berlin, bridging the gap between the public and private realms. A result of this transformative journey, the album encapsulates Aubry’s personal encounter and engagement with these environments, thus offering a unique and multifaceted sonic representation.
All recordings made during the winter of 2006 in Berlin.
Design by Gilles Aubry, Raphaël Cuomo and MCarvalhais.
Mastered by MCarvalhais.
Volutes (2008, Absinth Records, CD and digital)
 

Three generative compositions for computer. Each of them is based on the exploration of a different sound fragment, involving chance operations and feedback systems.

First published as a mini-CD on Absinth Records in 2008

Anti taupe (2008, Absinth Records, CD and digital)

All tracks generated using a Solar Mole Repellent device by Kermo Electronics (No B242 discontinued))

«Anti Taupe is one hell of a blast. The sound world presented is startling diverse, noisy and often crude, but with so many tempting flavours and varieties that is quite enticing. One can definitely detect a sense of cathartic exultation in this extreme noise music. The distortions are rich, harsh and relentless. However there is also a great diversity in the gestural language here. Aubry is nothing if not thorough in examining the diversity and versatility of this Solar Mole Repellant device. The results are joyous electronic flatulence, piercing drilling and kango-hammeresque interludes juxtaposed with unpredictable glissandi and brute-force leaps between textures, pitches and rhythms. This is a highly recommended collection of imaginative noisescapes to incinerate any cranial cobwebs accrued through over-academic listening habits.»
Review by Keith O’Brian (phosphor blog)

Collaborations

Apam Napat by Tomoko Sauvage and Gilles Aubry (2008, Musica Excentrica

Porcelain Waterbowls – Tomoko Sauvage
Computer – Gilles Aubry
Artwork – Vlad Inr
Compiled By – Nikita Golyshev

Initially released on Musica Excentrica – exc017

SwiftMachine by Aubry, Chessex, and Pappenheim (2003, Creative Sources)

Computer – Gilles Aubry
Guitar – Torsten Papenheim
Saxophone – Antoine Chessex

Compilations

Quantized Sea by Gilles Aubry, on 60 Seconds (2023, Corvo Records, LP and digital)

Gilles Aubry, Bewernitz/Goldowski ,Marek Brandt, Julia Bünnagel, Budhaditya Chattopadhyay, Yati Durant, Jorn Ebner, Richard Eigner, Kerstin Ergenzinger, Luca Forcucci, Dani Gal, Kristof Georgen, Jasmine Guffond, David Helbich, Zosia Hołubowska, Timo Kahlen, Anton Kats, Georg Klein, Bojana S. Knežević / BOASZ, Heimo Lattner, Mattin, Claudia Molitor, Nik Nowak, Stefan Roigk, Charlotte Simon (DJ Carl), Phillip Sollmann, Jan-Peter E.R. Sonntag, Wolfram Spyra, Erwin Stache, Tina Tonagel, Michael Trommer, Melanie Windl

Concept & production: Kristof Georgen
Label: Corvo Records (core 024)
Mastered by: Norman Nitzsche, Calyx-Mastering, Berlin
Graphic design: Bureau Progressiv, Stuttgart
Liner notes: Holger Lund

LP, black vinyl, 12″, 180g + 12-page booklet (DE/EN)

Edition of 300 handnumbered copies

And Who Ears the Desert by Gilles Aubry, on album Interactions: A Guide to Swiss Underground Experimental Music (2019, Buh Records)

Gilles Aubry – And who ears the desert (3:58)
Improvisation with defect copies of an LP record published on Corvo in 2017, based on Berber-Amazigh instruments recordings. The disk surfaces have been futher altered manually during a residency in Tighmert, Morocco, in collaboration with various artists.
Performance, edit and mix by Gilles Aubry.
Contributors : Mohamed Arejdal, M’barek Bouhchichi, Dounia Fikri and Lotfi Souidi.

MONNO

Monno by MONNO (2004, Sound Implant, digital)

Gilles Aubry – computer & electronics
Antoine Chessex – amplified saxophone & voice
Marc Fantini – drums
Derek Shirley – bass

Recorded at Alt Stralau 68 Berlin in 2004
Recording and mixing by Gilles Aubry
Cover art by Soichiro Mitsuya
Originally released on CD by Sound Implant