“The arc, here, is the simplest,” says Paris based musician François J Bonnet, aka Kassel Jaeger, explaining the idea behind his forthcoming album Swamps/Things. “It’s walking through the swamp. Approaching it, leaching into it, becoming it. The Swamp is us. Our own disappearance, populated by all the beasts we have turned into, by the places we have haunted, and by the time we have consumed. We are traces in an always intermediate state. Animals tracks in the sodden earth of the Swamp.”

As well as being a composer, Bonnet also works as producer and director of Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) – the research centre dedicated to the field of sound and electroacoustic music founded by Pierre Schaeffer in 1958. In an interview in The Wire 401, Bonnet explained how his approach to working for the organisation is similar to his own practice. “Meeting people, talking to people, exchanging ideas” are at the forefront of both aspects of his work, whether that's inviting people into the GRM studios, or collaborating on a personal project. Indeed, Swamps/Things features collaborations with both Lucy Railton and Jim O'Rourke. “The idea of doing a record is almost never the first step. It’s the conclusion of a process of friendship,” he concludes.

Read Robert Barry’s 2017 interview with Kassel Jaeger in The Wire 401. Swamps/Things is reviewed in The Wire 437. The album is released by Shelter Press on 10 July.