Fabrice Bouillon-Laforest

Fabrice Bouillon-Laforest, known also under his stage names LaForest and L'Eoscene, is a French composer and indie artist, with additional experience as pianist, musical coach, stage director and sound designer.

Over the years, his soundtrack for Asterix & Obelix XXL in particular has garnered special appreciation among Asterix and video game enthusiasts.

## Biography

Laforest studied composition at the Conservatory of Lyon, where he also worked as an accompanist for their dancing faculty between 2000 and 2003. Practicing and performing with the students on stage drew his interest in contemporary dance/ballet and live performing. He was approached to score a circus show for the National Circus School of Rosny in 2004, with which he has collaborated two more times since.

   Being based in Lyon, he provided sound effects and music for many of Etranges Libellules' video games in the 2000s, most notably their Asterix trilogy, when he had already worked as a co-composer together with Emmanuel Régis for several Infogrames titles throughout the 90s.

In 2007, Laforest got an opportunity to write the music for Germaine Acogny and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar's dance show The Scales of Memory, portraying the "diaspora" of the African community in the United States and the western-dominated world. This would mark his shift away from video game composing, with Asterix at the Olympic Games remaining his last game score to date.

This experience also gave Laforest the chance to visit Africa, fueling the creation of his second independent studio album *The Second Birth*, released in 2008. His lyrics have been described as poetic and transcendent by his small fanbase. In subsequent years, Laforest expanded his skillset to directing and co-directing several stage shows for the Atelier Bonnetaille and others, two of which are still being performed regularly as of 2020.

Together with one of his closest collaboraters, the professional dancer and choreographer Sébastien Cormier, he formed the artist collective FAUN(es) in 2014, which also produced his third studio recording, the *Stereo EP* in 2017.

Laforest is co-founder of the internationally acclaimed theatre company Hors Surface and has toured around the world several times with Germaine Acogny. In recent years, he has often participated in theatre/music workshops for schools and youth groups, like this one.

## Body of Work

Studio Recordings
 2002
 2008
 2012
 2017

Film & Soundtracks

## Style

Laforest's style is generally grounded in tense and repetitive rhythmic patterns, often performed by ethnic or even primitive instruments, like drums or struck idiophones such as wood blocks or xylophones. Often, multiple layers of intertwining rhythmic patterns are overlayed, making his music some of the only examples of cross-rhythmic music in video games. Melodic content is present, if not always predictable, and only very seldomnly arranged in classical four-voice structure.

Mostly avoiding conventions of orchestral composition at every step of the way (even when using orchestral instruments), the character of Laforest's music could well be summarized in the word "tribal", although this stark primality is contrasted by a vast amount of modern influences, such as electronica, jazz, trip-hop, or even techno, staying in line with the hypnotic nature of his music.

Laforest can adjust his sound strongly according to the story he's trying to convey. For example, starting with Asterix & Obelix XXL, he incorporates the human voice into his soundtracks, in the form of chants performed by himself. Here, he uses this new element mostly in tracks associated with the Roman Empire, as a way of illustrating the synchronized and highly civilized enemy forces encountered by our Gaulish heroes, which are mostly underscored by wild drums and ethnic flutes or harps. Other prominent instruments in the soundtrack include the Cello on the side of the Gauls, as well as the Horn on the side of the Romans.

Another great example of this tonal versatility is the second half of Laforest's studio song Swing of Things (Rain), where a variety of instruments such as the glockenspiel, piano, cymbals, or an electronic bass are used to emulate the sound of rain - dripping, pouring, splashing, rushing. A willingness to experiment is also clearly evidenced in the soundtrack for his stage play Fabulomania about a carpenter, which is partially performed live by the actors on stage with self-made wood blocks.

As a lyricist, Laforest stays true to this foundation in rhythm by using unusually many consonants in his verses, arranged structurally rather than melodiously, often metered by alliterations and clustering of hard plosives such as "p" or "t". We can see this not only in his music, but also in his acting, for example in this performance on his own stage drama Tetraktys.

## References

**General Links:**

* Official Website, 2010
* Facebook Profile
* Soundcloud Profile with Sample Tracks
* FAUN(es) Collectif Website, 2014-present

**Footnotes:**

1. ↑ http://www.vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php/Fabrice\_Bouillon
2. ↑ https://horssurface.com/equipe/fabrice-bouillon-laforest/
3. ↑ http://www.eight-consulting.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SOMEWHERE-AT-THE-BEGINNING-Juillet-2016.pdf
4. ↑ https://31e368a0-4a7c-46b9-a1c0-ac9e024686f0.filesusr.com/ugd/e00e28\_b62d4f9995bd48ffa385909926d33510.pdf