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Visage Zyg​è​ne

by Roxane Métayer

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about

"Zygaena is a genus of lepidopterans (butterflies) in the family Zygaenidae and subfamily Zygaeninae. It includes a hundred species, widespread in the Western Palearctic and called in French "Zygènes". The genus Zygaena was described by the Danish entomologist Johan Christian Fabricius in 1775.
The hundred or so species in the genus Zygaena are divided into three subgenera: Mesembrynus, Agrumenia and Zygaena.

Diurnal butterflies with black wings spotted with red, whose antennae are swollen in club: zygene of sweet clover, clover, vetch, scabious ... zygene are about the only butterflies that survive in the traditional cyanide bottle of the entomologists. On the other hand, they are not attacked by the usual predators(reptiles, birds, bats). These two facts have a common explanation: the zygene secretes by the base of its proboscis a highly toxic volatile liquid, based on hydrocyanic acid. The tissues of the zygene are impregnated with this acid.
The genus Zygaena is represented in France by about 25 species. There are exceptions because contrary to the others, the zygene of the scrubland is not black with red spots, but with broad red bands joined together in them. It is a species of the Mediterranean fauna.
The zygene is one of the aposematic species (a learned derivative of the ancient Greek ἀποσημαίνω, aposêmaínô " to announce by signs, to signal"), i.e., having very conspicuous and contrasting colors that would warn or bluff predators of its toxicity and serve as protection. Insects that possess in addition a chemical defense acquired by storing toxic substances of plants seem to benefit from a more effective protection, but protection, but metabolizing poisons also has an energy cost. This toxicity is due to the presence of cyanide and alkaloids of plant origin. This is a mechanism of Müllerian mimicry.
Unlike the Batesian mimicry (e.g. zoned volucella), which aims to imitate a dangerous species, the Müllerian mimicry consists in adopting the same type of signaling coloration for different toxic species.

Thus this black coloration spotted with red is shared by several species of zygens and by the scale of the ragwort.
The filipendula zygene or spirea zygene is one of the most common, probably because of its
food eclecticism. The forewings are narrow and elongated, bluish black with six distinct red spots distinct. There is a form with yellow spots. The hind wings are red bordered with black. At rest, these wings are lengthened along the body in roof. The zygene of the filipendula has long black antennas in clubs and a well developed proboscis. The body is thick, bluish black, and the wings black with red spots.
It flies rather "clumsily". It is found in many environments, dry or wet meadows, in places rich in grasses. It flies from May to August, settles on thistles, scabious, the papilionacées, the spirea. The females lay their eggs in small groups on different plants, and not necessarily on the not necessarily on the host plants of the caterpillar. This one is yellow spotted with black. It pupates in a yellow cocoon fixed on a plant where it winters."
Roxane Métayer

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Roxane Métayer is a French sound and visual artist now living in Brussels. She composes with the violin, primary wind instruments (ocarina and various flutes), archaic percussion and field recordings, fragmenting and reassembling them with synthetic effects. Nature becomes the backdrop of these wild soundscapes, populated by a phantasmagorical bestiary and an exuberant flora.

His music transcribes this swarming of a living free of biological or lexical constraints. Visage Zygène, placing human and nature side by side, stimulates the listener's magical thinking to transport him to a beneficent heresy. Thus, Roxane Métayer will mix acoustic sounds and electronic devices in a fertile dance.

Rousserolle et Locustelle begins the album as a presentation of the participants. On one side, a diatonic flute in the distance. On the other, the sound of the violin disturbed by jolts of cut, reverse and delay effects. The importance that the musician has given to the spatialization of the different sound elements participates in the total immersion in this chimerical universe. Traveling freely between the ears of the listeners, they are conceived as ephemeral conglomerates driven by the primitive energy of whirling in concert.

Noirâtre la Nuit may therefore evoke the long time playing of the geomungo, a Korean plucked stringed zither, while the dry percussion of Réveil de Fleurs Marines recalls the compositions of Moondog. Within her previous albums or her sculptures on beeswax and soap, Roxane Métayer develops an imaginary folklore that places the raw material at the center of creation. Visage Zygène marks a new step towards this singular, pagan and emancipating utopia.

credits

released September 16, 2022

composed by Roxane Métayer
artwork by Coline Llobet
mastering by Adrien Lambert

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roxanemetayer.bandcamp.com/music
www.instagram.com/coline.llobet/

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wabi-sabi tapes Saint étienne, France

Transient creations looking for balance in uncommon spaces.

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