Fie Schouten, Vincent Courtois, Sofia Borges, Pierre Baux: Open Space
Relative Pitch Records

Every once in a while, a recording surfaces to remind us of the value of unfettered creativity, spontaneity, and experimentalism, Open Space (2026) a model example. Comprising ten improvisations performed by clarinetist Fie Schouten, cellist Vincent Courtois, drummer Sofia Borges, and text reciter Pierre Baux, the piece was inspired by Georges Perec's 1974 book Espèces d'espaces (“Species of Spaces”). While the parts were collectively generated in the moment, they're not without some structural foundation as the four created a musical design that follows the chronology of the book. Texts recited by Baux aren't spun out of thin air but are instead fragments taken from Perec's original.

The compositions are credited equally to all four, but Schouten would appear to be the prime mover. Born in Amsterdam where she still lives, she picked up the bass clarinet at fifteen and, driven by insatiable curiosity inherited from her parents, never looked back. Today, she's regarded as a formidable presence in the contemporary music community who's premiered approximately 150 works written for her and performed with ensembles such as Ensemble Musikfabrik, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, and Ensemble Modern. She's currently a professor at the Prince Claus Conservatoire and since 2019 has co-curated Nieuwe Noten Amsterdam, a concert series promoting experimentation and innovation.

Schouten's long collaborated with French cellist Courtois and more recently the Portuguese percussionist Borges. For his part, Baux's worked with the cellist for over two decades, adding one extra connection to this four-member outfit. Recorded at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam in early 2025, Open Space exemplifies the free-spiritedness and open-mindedness of its creators. Ostensibly Perec's book explores our relationships with environments, be they private or public spaces. Consistent with that, Espèces d'espaces moves from the bedroom to the apartment, the building it's in, the street it's on, the city itself, and from there the country, the world, and finally the universe. In focusing our attention, Perec encourages us to examine our own environments and relationships to the spaces we inhabit and travel through. Music too requires space to navigate within and when others are present negotiations with them as to how space is shared. Each improviser must therefore be cognizant of where the individual is positioned but where the others are too. As a creative practice, improvisation lends itself naturally to such interactions. Of course of the four it's Baux who gives the most literal voice to Perec's material, but the three others allude to it through their instrumental expressions.

“SPACE” initiates the recording with Baux's distinctive voice listing (in French) words flanking “espace,” his partners responding to his utterances and their interactions growing ever more volatile as the voice component retreats. After Baux introduces “the bed & the room,” the piece blossoms into a trio improv, cymbal rolls and bowed cello intoning alongside Schouten's speculative musings. Borges is credited with drums on the sleeve but more operates as a percussionist when she punctuates the performances with sound colour and texture as opposed to conventional time-keeping. In being so ‘musical,' Baux's voice functions much like an instrument; consider, for example, how seamlessly his increasingly frenzied delivery fits in alongside the instrumentalists during the agitated “the appartment - moving in.” Entering “the street” brings with it flurries of activity and the musicians engaging in free play like some jazz trio of long-standing. The pace slows during “a letter” to suggest the protagonist sitting at a Paris cafe and reflecting on the content of the missive. Baux's role alternates between on the one hand announcing a part (e.g., “la ville”) and then ceding the stage to the others and on the other to speaking throughout a track, his contribution on par with theirs. Frenzy reinstates itself for “the country - borders,” after which demarcations of space borders vanish altogether as we enter “UNIVERSE.”

Give credit to the NYC-based Relative Pitch Records for granting this unusual release a home, especially when one so experimentally inclined will never be a major profit-maker. Open Space is nevertheless the kind of project that appears every now and then to remind us of the value of creative adventurousness and invention.

June 2026