Tout Bleu, the Geneva-based quartet, conjures a fusion of experimental jazz, pastoral darkwave, and glitch techno, led by Simone Aubert’s artistry. Evolving from her 2016 Cave12 solo project, Aubert’s incendiary guitar, fervent vocals from Hyperculte, and synth effects weave operatic anthems with socially charged lyrics, as heard on Tout Bleu (2020) and Otium (2021).

Electronics top name POL, a Genevan leftfield pioneer, crafts glitchy synthscapes and dub pulses at Black Bunker Studio, amplifying the quartet’s polyphonic sprawl. Portuguese cellist Beatriz Raimundo, steeped in Lisbon’s avant-garde scene, infuses polyrhythmic warmth, her bow conjuring cinematic depths. Viola expert Luciano Turella, from Irtum Branda, electrifies with soaring swells and effects, blending chamber rock with postpunk edge.

Let’s hear it from Simone Aubert before their gig at Jazzfest.

Your music mixes electronic sounds with live instruments. How do you find the right balance?

The three records we have released have been composed differently. All songs have very different paths to find their musicality and arrangements. Sometimes guitar comes first, sometimes bass, sometimes drums, sometimes singing. On the last record, POL came for a few songs with electronic beats or modular synth textures. Bass, guitar, and melodies came after. But it is usually the opposite way.

What is one technological tool or technique that fundamentally changed the way you think about composition in the past year?

Quadriphonic experiences. Hard to build with acoustic instruments, but this really opens the way I want to create sound experiences. It is not used in Tout Bleu’s live show because we want to keep it simple when we tour. But it would be nice to work on a quadriphonic version of our shows. I’m not myself interested in technologies.

What part of your JazzFest performance might surprise listeners in terms of structure, texture, or thematic direction?

The noisy parts probably; we go quite up in the volume and the harshness, a really important part of the gigs, to balance with the beauty, immersive, soft but tensed moments.

What does AI mean to you and does it have a place in your music?

Not yet. I don’t care really myself. I need to express things, AI won’t make this change and as I said before, technology is not really my thing. I actually work again with very dry instruments... guitar, bass and drums in a new project. Direct sound from a gesture to ears is what I prefer. That is maybe why Tout Bleu became a great project with POL taking more space in the propositions. It is special but good to be taken somewhere you wouldn’t go. That is also why it is beautiful to play with musicians having such different backgrounds.