laurent estoppey

Section Nine – Laurent Estoppey

I lose myself in our skin, our heat, our smell, losing myself in some open space of the past, forgetting for an instant the last weeks, the solitude and silence. I lose myself in her body for a moment and when I return her hands are fists at my shoulders and I stop. She turns to me as I rise from her, her eyes wide with fear, her lips thin and pale.

And I want to take her in my arms and hold her and tell her everything will be fine. We’ll get through this. But I pull away instead, her arms dropping from my shoulders to her sides with a damp slap. As I feel myself rise I extend the moment as best I can, my hand sliding from around her neck to her collarbone, two fingers tracing the line from her neck and between her breasts to her navel.

I withdraw, sitting up in the space between her parted legs. Her arms wind across her chest.

“Sophie, can we talk…”

“No.” And that’s all she’ll say.

Away is Never Far Enough by Laurent Estoppey

Composed and performed by Laurent Estoppey

Laurent Estoppey is a Swiss Saxophonist and composer who devotes himself mostly to the music and arts of today. His work is divided between pushing the boundaries of saxophone technique, often related to live processed electronics, and pieces involving a variety of instruments.

His musical activity is divided between written music and improvisation and occurs throughout Switzerland and Europe, also in Canada, the USA, Russia, Argentina, Guatemala, and South Africa. He is a member and artistic director of Swiss ensemble baBel and COLLAPSS (Collective for Happy Sounds – Music, Dance, Poetry, Visual Arts in Greensboro, NC).

Estoppey has worked along many independent musicians such as Elliot Sharp, Anthony Coleman, Ikue Mori, Eugene Chadbourne, Nick Didkovsky, Urs Leingruber and Fritz Hauser.
His discography includes more than twenty recordings featuring on Claves records (CH), Aussenraum Records (CH), Insubordinations (CH), Thödol (F), Out and Gone (USA) and NOVA (USA).

Estoppey is a reference artist for Italian saxophone maker Rampone-Cazzani, is a D’Addario Performing artist and a Rovner ambassador.

Laurent’s website

The Cloud Diary Music Project
We sent musicians a synopsis of Cloud Diary and a randomly chosen scene from among 12 scattered throughout the novel and asked them to respond to the scene, musically or aurally. The piece could be of any genre and any duration. It could be music already recorded, adapted, or written specifically for the scene. Find more information here.

Click here for the full Music Project playlist.