Benoît Delbecq is a uniquely gifted French pianist who has created his own music using ideas and techniques from contemporary classical jazz, Pygmy polyphony and European improvisation. He prepares the piano with various materials such as eraser bits and carved wooden twigs and improvises on short, overlapping vamps and patterns; the result is a complex, spacious sound that hardly seems to be emanating from a single instrument. On "Nu-turn", his debut solo release from 2003, Delbecq stretches out on eight astonishingly structured improvisations; the final 11 minute composition is a computer-created ambient “remix” that completely transforms the material.

Since 2014, the collective Grdina-Houle-Loewen has forged a new stream of complex compositions that meld together density, ferocious energy and technical virtuosity. The group's versatility and wide dynamic range has become finely honed, creating an ensemble that can change course dramatically. The group just spent some time at Afterlife Studios in July 2016, recording a set of quartet music with French pianist Benoît Delbecq, that been released by Songlines Records in the spring of 2017.

Poolplayers is another surprising manifestation of a direction in free improvised music that’s distinctive but hard to define: it’s more an attitude than a genre. Poolplayers make music on the introverted end of this nebulous movement, exploring the interaction of live electronics and their own personal languages of extended techniques to create soundscapes that exert a palpable fascination on this 2008 release. The members of the group, all well known in Europe, came together in France in 2005.

"Phonetics" from Paris-based pianist and composer Benoît Delbecq presents an artist at the height of his imaginative and synthesizing powers. Recorded with an international quintet and featuring prepared piano on several tracks, this album showcases Delbecq's broad and deep vision of music, burnished by the audiophile recording. Phonetics was named one of the 12 best records of 2004 ("Choc de l’année") by Jazzman, the leading jazz magazine in France.