Following its warmly received release in spring 2025, Le Tact, the fourth album by French composer Joseph Schiano di Lombo, is now available on vinyl and as an expanded digital edition. Blending acoustic instruments, synthesizers and subtle electronic processing, the album sits at the crossroads of modern classical and ambient music, and is now enriched with remixes by four singular and genre-defying artists: Camille Delvecchio (Grand Blanc), Joseph Shabason, Kiala Ogawa and Xzavier Stone.
The Album
With Le Tact, Joseph Schiano di Lombo presents a work of remarkable subtlety, conceived as a posthumous conversation with photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. Through seven meditative pieces—whose evocative titles echo the photographer’s own reflections on the art of making an image—the album explores the instinctive and delicate relationship between music, photography and our everyday lives.
First performed live during the 20th anniversary celebration of the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris, Le Tact draws its inspiration from the photographer’s artistic approach: a sensitive and respectful practice in which the essence of things is captured without altering them. This spirit of discretion and precision is distilled into Schiano di Lombo’s music, where composition and improvisation blend together with intuitive elegance.
While the French composer writes the pieces and performs piano, organ, synthesizer, clarinet and guitar himself, he opens his arrangements for the first time to other musicians. Agnes Wasniewska (oboe), Barbara Misiewicz (cello) and Tomasz Baye Zietek (trumpet) contribute their sonic textures, enriching this work—both intimate and collaborative—recorded between Paris and Sopot, Poland, during an artist residency organized by the CNM (Centre National de la Musique).
The album’s title reflects Joseph’s compositional approach: one of respect, humility and attention to detail—much like Cartier-Bresson’s attitude toward his subjects. As the photographer himself once suggested, “tact” defined his way of moving through the world: discreetly, respectfully, like a silent or invisible shadow. Each note of the album seems to float lightly, as if careful not to disturb the serenity of the moment, inviting the listener to slow down and truly listen. It is a tribute to the beauty of the world, captured with the subtlety of a photographer and the sensitivity of a musician.
Remixes
For this new expanded edition, the digital version of the album is enriched with four remixes entrusted to equally singular and distinctive artists. As Joseph Schiano di Lombo explains: “I chose them not only because I admire their work and their musical voice, but also because they share with me a free and versatile approach to music. They are artists who live their art intensely, and whose music reflects their true nature.”
Close to Joseph, Camille Delvecchio—singer and keyboardist of the French band Grand Blanc, a group that has moved far beyond its rock origins—reimagines “Arriver tout doucement.” She immerses the guitar, clarinet and trumpet from the original track in a bath of ambient vocal textures and floating timbres, echoing her recent collaboration with electronic and ambient composer Adrien Pallot.
Paris-based composer, pianist and singer Kiala Ogawa, of Japanese and Congolese heritage, revisits “Pas de bruit.” She adds ambient synthesizer chords and her own vocals, sung in Japanese. A founding member of the group Kodäma, she develops a hybrid and cross-cultural musical universe blending electronic experimentation with acoustic instruments, drawing inspiration from jazz, neo-classical music and composers such as Ryuichi Sakamoto. She also hosts the DJ residency Maiden Voyage, broadcast twice a month on Rinse FM.
Canadian musician Joseph Shabason remixes—or rather re-orchestrates—“Ne rien préparer, ne rien arranger,” transforming the original into a composition at the crossroads of jazz and ambient, carried by a subtle groove and a beautiful flute melody. Although still relatively unknown in France, this multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer, originally trained as a saxophonist, has collaborated with numerous artists and toured with indie rock bands such as Destroyer and The War On Drugs. He has also released around ten albums exploring the borders between jazz, folk and ambient music, while composing for film and documentary.
Finally, producer, singer and DJ Xzavier Stone playfully revisits and deconstructs “Être invisible,” transforming the track into a suspended and dreamlike composition reminiscent of the sonic collages of electronica and abstract hip-hop. A Swiss artist now based in Rome, his latest albums, Upward Spiral and Greyscale, explore a futuristic form of R&B with innovative sonic textures that deliberately move away from the genre’s clichés.