That Summer

That Summer is David Sanson's musical project. Raised in Chateauroux in France, David Sanson attended the academy of music for ten years, and was brought up with the classical music and jazz of his parents, as well as becoming interested in cold wave and ? industrial ? tones. Tony Wakeford (Death In June, Sol Invictus) listened to one of his first demos and encouraged him to continue and finally produced his first full-length in 1993: DROWSINESS OF ANCIENT GARDENS is the result of one week's work with an analog 8-track recorder, featuring intimate and mostly piano/cello compositions.

Due to this On his second album HOME IS WHERE THE STUDIO IS (recorded in Berlin with Bernd Jestram/Tarwater during the Summer of 2001) David Sanson tried to conciliate parallel worlds and atmospheres, analogical sounds versus acoustic instruments, silence versus singing, and discord versus melodies... Sometimes compared to Robert Wyatt or Tuxedomoon, HOME IS WHERE THE STUDIO IS was critically acclaimed in France, where the magazine ? Les Inrockuptibles ? described That Summer as ? a false Parisian band with a vertiginous culture ?. That Summer's third album, CLEAR, was composed between 2001 and 2004, and between Paris and Montreal (two tracks were recorded at the Hotel2Tango, the studio of Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Arcade Fire!). It is the result of a close collaboration with several French musicians such as Benoit Burello (Bed), Sylvain Chauveau, Pierre-Yves Mac?, J?rome Mini?re, Jean-Michel Pir?s (The Married Monk, Headphone, Bed, NLF3...), Alain Frappier (Baroque Bordello) and Geoffroy Montel (Minizza), and also with artists such as Malcolm Eden (Mc Carthy, Herzfeld), Rebecca Foon and Rachel Levine (Fifths Of Seven). An atypical and ambitious record, which mixes together different resonances and textures (acoustic as well as electronic sounds, sonic distortions and intimacy). A dozen pastoral and urban pop-songs, melodic and melancholic, stripped down and subtle, influenced by artists such as Brian Eno and David Sylvian, as well as Hood and Depeche Mode. CLEAR has been released by the Bordeaux-based label Talitres (Wedding Present, The Organ, Idaho..), on the recent compilation of which (TALITRES IS 5, a 5-year-anniversary double CD) That Summer is featured with a new, unreleased track. In the meantime, Arbouse Recordings have published in 2004 STRATEGIES OBLIQUES as a CD-R: The soundtrack of an eponymous short film directed by Rodolphe Bertrand. Eventually, on NINE SHRUNKEN PIECES, a mini-album released on Optical Sound in Fall '06, That Summer appears as a trio - featuring Nikolu Jorio, a wonderful guitar player (also a member of La Chatte and Lustrine - check their pages!), and the visual and sound artist Emmanuel Lagarrigue. This record is another way of collaboration: It is the transcription of 9 PIECES REDUITES, an exhibition by the visual artist Sa?dane Afif that was held at the Prince Pierre Foundation (Monaco), in July 2006. First, the artist commissioned lyrics to David Sanson, in connection with every exhibited works of art, while keeping the original titles and providing personal interpretations of each work. These texts have then been passed on to That Summer who created nine music pieces.