Olivier Alary

Whether working with his project <a href="spotify:artist:5a1fCbv0Bw3r7ehPuK3lfb">Ensemble</a> or under his own name, French multi-instrumentalist/composer Olivier Alary makes music with a filmic complexity. Born in Toulouse, France, Alary moved to London in the late '90s to study electro-acoustic composition at Middlesex University after completing a degree in architecture. He began making music under the name Hearing Is Our Concern and submitted demos of his music to labels including <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22FatCat%22">FatCat</a>. After switching the name of his project to <a href="spotify:artist:5a1fCbv0Bw3r7ehPuK3lfb">Ensemble</a> in 1998, Alary released 2000's Sketch Proposals via <a href="spotify:artist:6kBDZFXuLrZgHnvmPu9NsG">Aphex Twin</a>'s <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Rephlex%22">Rephlex</a> label. The album caught the attention of <a href="spotify:artist:7w29UYBi0qsHi5RTcv3lmA">Björk</a>, who commissioned him to remix songs from Vespertine and Medúlla, and also collaborated with him on the Medúlla track "Desired Constellation." On <a href="spotify:artist:5a1fCbv0Bw3r7ehPuK3lfb">Ensemble</a>'s self-titled 2006 album, he worked with Chan Marshall, <a href="spotify:artist:73ITRDqlSE4huQlrKuqrBU">Lou Barlow</a>, and Germany's <a href="spotify:artist:3gGJa6qH96mfOdii1Wzuir">Babelsberg Orchestra</a>, all of whom helped Alary combine folky pop with symphonic arrangements. <a href="spotify:artist:5a1fCbv0Bw3r7ehPuK3lfb">Ensemble</a> released another album, 2011's Excerpts, but during the late 2000s the composer's focus moved increasingly to soundtrack work. This included the scores to Yung Chang's documentaries Up the Yangtze (2007) and China Heavyweight (2012), as well as music for fiction films such as Matias Meyer's Yo (2014) and Maxime Giroux's Felix and Meira (2014). Alary's solo debut, Fiction/Non-Fiction, collected selections of his film work; <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22FatCat%22">FatCat</a>'s classical imprint <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22130701%22">130701</a> released the album in early 2017. ~ Heather Phares, Rovi

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