Stadium

Description

Chevreuil is a French rock duo formed in 1998 by Julien F. and Tony C., three years after their meeting at the École des beaux-arts de Nantes. From the start, they approached the idea of a band as a performative installation — a self-contained sculptural device dedicated to sound, space, and movement, rather than a traditional rock ensemble. Julien and Tony play "magnetic drums" and "magnetic guitar," a proto-semantic elaboration unique to them, which compares their playing to an instinctive physical phenomenon that naturally exerts attractive or repulsive forces. Their interaction is minimal and charged, based on reduction, repetition, and architectural thinking. Their music functions as an assembly of interlocking, overlapping, geometric, and structured rhythmic and harmonic blocks. Rejecting a traditional formation, Chevreuil developed a quadraphonic setup where Tony's guitar passes through four amplifiers surrounding Julien's drums. This configuration allows them to play anywhere, with the only requirement being an electrical outlet. The result is both physical and spatial: a minimalist engine of rhythm and resonance that behaves as much like an installation as a band. Between 1998 and 2006, Chevreuil released four albums, one EP, and several singles. Their discography includes Sport (2000), Ghetto Blaster (2001), Châteauvallon (2003), Science (EP, 2006), and Capoëira (2006). The last three were recorded by Steve Albini in Chicago. Released on RuminanCe (Paris), Sickroom Records (Chicago), and StiffSlack (Nagoya), these records placed Chevreuil within a transatlantic network of artists exploring form and texture rather than genre conventions. After a twenty-year hiatus, Chevreuil returns with Stadium, a double album tinged with esotericism recorded in France in January 2025, set to be released on April 24, 2026. Stadium revisits the fundamental conditions of Chevreuil's work (live recording, unamplified drums, quadraphonic immersion) while expanding their sound palette with a reconfigured guitar that operates as a hybrid electro-acoustic engine capable of producing electronic sounds. Conceptually, the album draws from magnetism, the music of the spheres, radioactivity, barometric oscillations, astrometry, and magic, using these notions as prisms to explore vibration and transformation. Each side of the double LP contains four pieces, forming parallel sequences that can be heard as two distinct albums or a single continuum. The recording process remained consistent — identical settings from recording to mastering — so that each variation comes solely from the nuance of interpretation. Chevreuil's return reaffirms their identity: a duo shaped by conceptualism, sound architecture, and human connection, building a musical environment.