By placing the initiative of their association under the auspices of Hungarian composer Béla Bartók – whom, more than a century ago, founded an essential part of his revolutionary grammar on a personal re-reading of Transylvania's traditional folk music –  pianist Lucian Ban, violist Mat Maneri and saxophonist John Surman unambiguously set the idiomatic and imaginary boundaries of the territories they have decided to explore, on the borders of folklore, contemporary music and free improvisation. Creating their own universe from the same repertoire of folk songs as Bartók, these three highly talented musicians invent an improvised chamber music of great refinement in sound textures, at once lyrical, expressionist and elegiac.

The result of an unprecedented encounter between Franco-Lebanese percussionist Wassim Halal and seven members of the Balinese gamelan Puspa Warna, Polyphème creates a sound universe that is at once lush, highly sophisticated and resolutely hybrid. Bringing into play all the potential of this immense percussive orchestra that the gamelan is in terms of precious textures and embedded polyrhythms, this project engages in a dialogue as unique as it is fertile with the Arab tradition embodied in the sensual grooves of the daburka. Pulsating with rhythmic twists and hallucinatory variations reminiscent of the most contemporary repetitive music, Polyphème blurs geographical and idiomatic boundaries, enriching and questionning  musical traditions to open up new horizons.