Bordelais d'origine, membre du quintette Hubbub, fondateur de l'association Clac-sons et de l'étiquette La Belle du Quai, habitué (trop rare) des Instants Chavirés et d'autres structures spécialisées, Frédéric Blondy s'inscrit dans une mouvance généreuse et dynamique de l'improvisation (généralement qualifiée, par paresse critique, de "post-taylorienne") dans laquelle s'engouffrent pêle-mêle (dans des registres divers) des instrumentistes comme Fred van Hove, Marilyn Crispell, Misha Mengelberg, Christine Wodrascka, Irène Schweizer, Agusti Fernandez, Sophie Agnel, Paul Plimley, Alex Schlippenbach ou Matthew Shipp.
Comme ses aînés, il est également attiré par l'exploration des possibilités sonores de l'instrument à l'aide d'un jeu direct (frotté, frappé) sur les cordes, les touches, la table de résonance. Confronté ici à la verve impétueuse (et cette sorte d'écologie sonore due à la nature même de ses ustensiles) du percussionniste toulousain Lê Quan Ninh, Blondy semble privilégier une puissance retenue et un phrasé tout en finesse et contrastes - voire une belle épure presque aride jusqu'à la fascination - évocateurs d'un certain piano romantique et surtout un souci de ne pas "encombrer" la matière sonore. C'est précisément dans la fluidité de ce lyrisme sobre et attentif au détail que Blondy donne le meilleur de son art, en affichant clairement ses intentions à mi-chemin entre l'enseignement de compositeurs du siècle dernier, (Cage, Ligeti...) et l'improvisation totale.
Gérard Rouy l Jazz Magazine l Janvier 2004

Certes, il faut y croire. Ce disque échappe à la saturation persistante et ultra-périssable dans l'impro spécialisée, et il suffit de se prêter au jeu, à l'hypothèse du hasard aveugle suggérée par son titre pour franchir de nouveaux territoires sonores. Deux mondes, piano et percussion, et une collaboration entamée depuis la fin des années 1990. Ces ultimes aventuriers sont unis par une alchimie complice, avec alternance refléchie du silence et de la fureur impure, où tous clapotis, cordes pincées procurent la sensation de l'éphémère. Lê Quan Ninh n'est plus à présenter dans son exploration des éléments dont les plus belles traces subsistent avec le Quatuor Hélios ou Michel Doneda. Frédéric Blondy, lui, a expérimenté les possibilités soniques du clavier, marqué par l'impact de Cecil Taylor, puis s'est penché sur l'aspect pIus méditatif des pièces de Cage ou Feldman. On pense à la poésie, au nom d'une continuelle et infaillible expansion... Rien d'hermétique à tout cela, le hasard est une main plus sûre (troisième morceau).Les frottements des cymbales et de la peau des toms, tous les ajouts d'objets que l'on cherche à discernel produisent quelque chose de curieusement pondéré. Bref, c'est l'équilibre de l'irrationnel. Tous les éléments usuels, dégradés, oscillants du quotidien le plus trivial parviennent à créer la merveille chaotique; une anarchie enfin concevable, ponctuée par un silence strident: un cosmos. A terme, iI faut l'avouer, cela vaut la peine de chercher au-delà d'ECM...
Vincent Lecœur l Octopus l Novembre 2003

For the longest time, Lê Quan Ninh has held a place as my favourite percussionist. Ever since his days with Idiome 1238 (whose concerts were an absolute blast!) and his involvement with the new music ensemble Quatuor Helios (whose concerts were less of a blast, but maintained an interesting edge to them), he's been convincingly good to great. His recent show at the Guelph Jazz Festival turned out to be a festival highlight. On-going involvement with improvising musicians (everyone from Michel Doneda, Günter Müller, Daunik Lazro, Mari Kimura, Paul Rogers, Butch Morris, Kazue Sawai to Dominique Regef) makes him ideal as the percussionist of choice. This doesn't mean that he is everyone’s ideal, but his far reaching sense of the learned application of percussion makes him a definite asset.
Lê Quan Ninh’s best work is heard in small ensembles though in a powerhouse group like Idiome 1238 and in Butch Morris' ensembles, he was still a force to be reckoned with. His duet with pianist Frédéric Blondy is another example of his fine style. Though he is in full prowess on this recording, he never comes across as an over-powering individual. In fact, he is more keenly listening for cues given off from Blondy than in pursuing a selfish timetable for himself. Blondy is an articulate player himself, choosing to stick to striking single keys at a time, rather than creating a full onslaught. Ninh responds in turn with vibrant scrapes against a cymbal and some mallet work on his tom-tom. His metallic percussion work is still heard up front. The sections I like best are ones where Blondy is busy concentrating on the inside of the piano (mostly striking the strings and sides of the piano), while Ninh strikes up a medium-tempo storm with his bare hands on the skins. Many open spaces are left behind to allow the listener to recoup and listen with extreme care. Both players have perfected the art of listening with intimate care and share a common language which only these two understand.
Tom Sekowski l The Live Music Report l December 2006

Lê Quan Ninh is certainly no stranger to the twin endeavors of creating pine cone cathedrals of ethereal clatter and filling them with Gregorian hoomph from his well-rubbed bass drum. Regrettably, for those of us who prefer Pentecostal glossolalia to Latin masses, though, exaltatio utriusque mundi, his duo album with pianist Frédéric Blondy, spends half its time engaged in dialogical improvisation. The four-minute La Verticale Reposée could preach its lugubrious bowed-piano and bowed-water-tower sermon to the converted - me - for ten times its duration, and Vater Aether compares the sins of the flesh to a slowly rusting Citroën convincingly enough to make me desire a convertible. During the morally uplifting yet slightly familiar free-music hymns, though, one would certainly be forgiven for sneaking to a back pew and reading a Chick tract.
Alessandro Moreschi III l Bananafish l November 2004

I didn't expect this record to be so combative and rambunctious. No longer will I associate Ninh only with the kind of ambient improv Morton Feldman would be proud of. Don't get me wrong, l've been quite impressed by Ninh both in concert and on his other recordings, but these experiences in no way prepared me for the whipcracking slingshots of percussion found on the opening cut of this recording. He still bows cymbals with meditative care-check out the glistening scrapes on la verticale reposée - but he also beats them and shakes them, making them crack and slash into the furrowed strokes of Blondy's prepared piano, as on exaltatio utriusque mundi. The duo rise and fall, accelerating and decelerating rhythmic particles like so many blanched sonorities. Ninh's bass drum has become a mighty device worthy of pounding on its own, not just a resonating chamber for dragging struck cymbais. These deep thumps during la nuit est conciliante are studded with sharp, tinkIing hammerstrikes from Blondy's piano. The textures throughout this recording should be required study for anyone interested in the pursuit of a material science education. Thugh often confounding, the textures are so distinct and evocative that they completely envelop the mind's space as they voyage into the ear. The ooze-like tempo of vers la septième solitude proceeds with crumbles of pianotones that hang in the air, large pauses swallowing the echoes. Snaps and crinkles from the percussion wash up as periodicaliy and irregularly as a rising shoreline: the combination is tranquil and eerie. The six tracks on exaltatio utriusque mundi cover more musical ground than the marathon seasons of any big-city symphony orchestra.
Andrew Choate l Coda l May 2004

Meditative musings that build emphaticelly form the basis of the piano/percussion duet on exaltatio utriusque mundi. Blondy initiates the conversation with singular stabs at the piano, and from there he builds momentum with hearty runs over the keys. From tinkling abstractness to pronounced demonstrativeness, he explores a plethora of conceptive thought processes. Blondy consistently reverts to a staccato style of playing where short intervals of space integrate with the piano's output He continues to enlarge the scenario as it moves into rampaging waters of treacherous dimensions. The music ebbs and flows in these unpredictable phases as dynamic explosions melt into serene reveries and then return to turbulent seas. Blondy ends the recording as it began by utilizing space and silence as equal partners with his introspective playing.
Ninh is an extreme colorist using a wide range of percussive tactics, he engulfs the aural spece with varying nuances that enlarge and expand into more pronounced examples of aggressiveness. Rattles, cymbals. and numerous other objects of sound become the vehicle for his sonic embellishment of the music. Broken and interrupted patterns emerge from his instruments consistent with the tonal qualities rising as misty waves from Blondy's piano. As Blondy enters into a more agitated state, Ninh matches the action with volatile interchanges. The music at times has eerie qualities resulting from Ninh's creative percussion technique. Blondy and Ninh are of one mind and body on this demanding program. They thlnk as indivlduals but interrelate as an inseparable unit during this exacting set.
Frank Rubolino l Cadence l April 2004

The French percussionist Lê Quan Ninh is a sight to behold live: his instrument of choice is a bass drum turned on its side, and he’s adept with both virtuosic rhythmic figures and otherworldly textures, which he creates by exciting his instrument with pinecones, cymbals and bows. On Exaltatio Utriusque Mundi (“The Exaltation of Two Worlds,” an appropriate title if there ever was one), his excellent new collaboration with the young French pianist Frédéric Blondy, Ninh showcases both of those skills. About half of the album consists of conversational free jazz, and nearly as much features droning, Keith Rowe-esque improv. The dramatic contrasts between these styles might be off-putting if Ninh and Blondy weren’t excellent in both of them.
When Blondy plays the keys of the piano, as he does on Exaltatio Utriusque Mundi and Le Hasard est une Main Plus Sûre his touch is exquisite – he sprints in a dozen contradictory directions at once like Cecil Taylor, but does so without Taylor’s aggression, allowing the listener to appreciate the nuances of each tumbling run. Ninh’s playing behind him is similarly busy, but musical enough to complement Blondy’s polite style.
Elsewhere, however, the duo’s playing is decidedly different – on La Verticale Reposée and Vater Aether, Ninh and Blondy are less argumentative. Both focus on creating sustained sounds: Ninh rubs his bass drum, rather than striking it, while Blondy excites the strings inside his piano. The album ends with Vers La Septième Solitude, which features lovely, spare piano playing reminiscent of John Tilbury or the late works of Morton Feldman.
These pieces have nothing in common with Exaltatio... or Le Hasard..., meaning that Exaltatio Utriusque Mundi can be tough to listen to from beginning to end despite the excellence of the pieces it contains. In the future, perhaps Ninh and Blondy will try to find common ground between the two main idioms explored here. While narrative free jazz and texture-based improv share common ancestors, most improv discs usually feature one or the other. Ninh and Blondy clearly have the skills to do both, and the combination of rumbling, sustained bass drum sounds and Blondy’s keyed, splintered piano lines might be exciting indeed.
Charlie Wilmoth l Dusted Magazine l December 2003

Hands down the most impressive percussionist who moves between the twin poles of improvisation and New music, Lê Quan Ninh is as unflappable in a solo situation as in collaboration.
Perhaps it's because the emblematic array of objects that can be hit, caressed or manipulated with which he performs allows him to be self-sufficiently musical. Yet, as this CD, recorded in 2001 shows, with the right partner, he has no need to be a one-man band.
Other sessions have featured the Vietnamese-French innovator exchanging ideas with nearly every progressive European improviser extant, not to mention modern dancers and experimental filmmakers. Plus he mixes percussion and new technology as part of the Quatuor Hêlios. His partner on exaltatio utriusque mundi is Bordeaux-born pianist Frédéric Blondy who concentrated on the study of jazz and formal music at a local conservatory, after studying mathematics and physics at university. Since that time he has worked with improvisers like Swiss saxophonist Urs Leimgruber and German drummer Paul Lovens, as well as recording with the Hubbub quintet.
Be aware that its links to conventional piano-percussion duets are about as distant as the films of experimentalist Stan Brakhage are from those of Western mythmaker John Ford.
Still if you take something like Le hasard est une main plus sûre, badly translated as "a sure hand is luck," you can at least hear two instruments, although attributing some of the scrapes on unyielding surfaces to either one or the other is often impossible. This happens after Blondy extends his low frequency piano tones with pedal action, then reverberates timbres from the soundboard and the speaking length within the frame. Chiming, dampened piano action recalls Ninh's earlier shaking of his bell tree and pealing cymbal pressure. Keyboard phrases are foreshortened to such an extent that even the few impressionistic chords and pounded arpeggios appear as percussive as Ninh's focused rim shots and rattles and clanks. At points the pianist appears to be burlesquing 20th century atonality; at others his forward-moving syncopation turns to a glissando of many treble notes, as bellicose as anything from Cecil Taylor territory. Meanwhile the percussionist sounds as if he's gouging metallic surfaces, rattling bells and other implements as if they were aluminum pots and pans, and almost literally rendering wood.
Elsewhere it seems as if a moistened finger is being slid across a drumhead and a violin bow pressed into service to saw on a ride cymbal. As the horsehairs move across the lathed surface, the droning buzzes and whistles take on the character of a circular saw. Alternately, wooden flute tones -- produced by what means remains a mystery -- bloom into a noise miasma that's a combination of a fire engine's siren and a freight train gearing up to exit the station. Fluttering, cascading counter chords then arise form the piano.
This exercise in wood, metal, strings and skin reaches its climax on the track, Vers la septième solitude ("towards the seventh solitude"), which is likely pure silence since this is the final track. Largo, Blondy creates an étude of low frequency single notes that sail along on the surface of extended, growling metallic scrapes that also appear on other tracks. Here, though, in recital mode, the pianoman reaches inside to the keyframe and soundboard to strum strings as if he was playing a large guitar. He hits individual keys to extend their vibrations then ends on a single emphasized tone.
Ken Waxman l Jazzweekly l December 2003

The Exultation Of Two Worlds is actually a misnomer. Both musicians, percussionist Lê Quan Ninh and pianist Frédéric Blondy, inhabit the same territory of creative free improvisation. Their manner of producing sound is even similar.
Frédéric Blondy a participant in the new French improvisation scene is a member of the bands Ethos (with Xavier Charles and David Chiesa) and Hubbub, which recently released Hoop Whoop on Matchless. His sound tends toward percussive playing with a mixture of melody for context.
Percussionist Lê Quan Ninh, a twenty-year veteran of the improvisation scene, has played in combination with a who’s-who of creative players. His recordings have included solo percussive works with Quatuor Hêlios and as a member of Butch Morris’ Conduction Ensembles. He has a penchant for utilizing a minimal drumkit and odd/innovative instrumentation.
The disc opens with the title track and Blondy’s cascading piano notes over the dancing percussive playing on the sides of Ninh’s drumkit. At least it sounds like the sides. I can't be sure, because he tends toward new sounds generated on varying musical and nonmusical utensils. The music sluices like a flowing stream with trickles of energy and bubbling nuance.
Ninh’s cymbal raking/bowing opens La Verticale Reposée sounding like a Jimi Hendrix electric solo in flight. His extended technique, beautifully recorded, gives off a three dimensional feel throughout. Like a guitar solo, it is absorbed by your chest. Elsewhere Ninh’s playing sounds like a jet taking off and a horn section!
The pair interact throughout, alternating between playing on, around, and with their instruments. Blondy is not shy when it comes to opening the piano to expand the possiblities of its insides. I certainly cannot tell you where all the sounds come from, but they are all visceral expressions.
These worlds, anything but mutally exclusive, come together nicely for a complete statement.
Mark Corroto l All about jazz l October 2003

Although percussionist Lê Quan Ninh is a frequent collaborator with all sorts of instrumentalists, the idea of him performing in duo with a pianist seems odd. Somehow, the integration of his attacks on a horizontally placed bass drum, assaulting it with everything from cymbals to pinecones, with any kind of chordal instrument seems to risk a muddier outcome.
That Frédéric Blondy by and large avoids this trap is in large part responsible for the general success of this disc. Things begin a bit shakily with Blondy in abstract, Cecil-ish territory and Ninh acceding to a mere supporting role, ending up as a diluted exposition of the talent of both. But the second track, La verticale reposée, opens with some wonderful, resonant string-stroking (difficult to say who is responsible, but I'm guessing it's Blondy drawing something like a wire between the piano strings), gradually mixing in with blurred thunder underneath, evoking a rich and mysterious atmosphere. From here on in, Ninh appears to be setting the agenda, which is all to the good. He's his "usual" amazing self here, conjuring up an extravagant and otherworldly bunch of sounds from the supposedly limited resources at hand - astonishing what an abused bass drum is capable of. He also listens superbly, filling in the ample spaces left by Blondy as well as prodding the pianist into unusual areas.
Even at the music's sparest, as on La nuit est conciliante, there's enough palpable, tensile strength in the silences to render a convincingly solid sound field. When Blondy introduces hitherto unheard delicate and romantic notes to open the final piece, it sounds entirely natural, like the final steps of an invigorating journey. Perhaps surprisingly, Ninh's scrapes and patters work exceptionally well behind a scrim of this type, a sweet and sour mixture of ideal balance. Exaltatio utriusque mundi (I won't attempt a translation) ends up being a nicely subtle release, one that may sneak up unexpectedly on the cynical ears of veteran listeners but which can also serve as a reasonable and enjoyable introduction to the worlds of these two intriguing musicians.
Brian Olewnick l The Squid's Ear l September 2003

Le Quan Ninh is a Vietnamese percussionist whose specializes in the "surrounded bass drum". He tickles and tortures his ax with a wide variety of both household and otherworldly implements to produce an incredible array of sounds from something that was once used exclusively for the low- or un-pitched boom boom boom. (In those days, people swirled marbles around their drum heads only at home for fun.) His palette is broad and his sensitivity, dexterity and expressiveness are now well known around e-ai circles. I’m particularly fond of his masterful work with Gunter Muller on La Voyelle Liquide. On Exaltatio utriusque mundi, he is teamed with rising-star avant-garde pianist Frederic Blondy. Together they weave a very satisfying pointillistic web that, in its early stages, brings to mind Boulez’s piano sonatas and Structures. Like La Voyelle, it’s busy, jittery, splashy and electrifying. The improvising pianist of whom Blondy reminds me most is fellow Boulezian Steve Lantner, but the Blondy work I’ve heard may be a bit less uncompromisingly serioso than Lantner’s. With Blondy, there’s a bit of high-energy Borah Bergman-style skittering mixed in with the kontra-punkte. Percussionist and pianist mesh beautifully here, and the disc is a fine one. As you are engulfed by this music, you’re sure to say (at least seven times) "How the hell did they do that?" The results range from anxious burbles and jangles to something that sounds (on Water Aether) like a softly singing ensemble of sirens and baby whales. Best of all is the tender, Feldmanesque final track, with its lingering single tones, ominous growls and questioning, two-tone bell chords. Gorgeous.
Walter Horn l Bagatellen l September 2003

"The Exaltation of Two Worlds": it makes a lot of promises for a title, starting with an encounter between wildly different elements and a certain amount of excitement. Exaltatio Utriusque Mundi actually works on a much subtler level and its rewards are more subdued. Pianist Frédéric Blondy is best known in free improvisation circles for his tenure in the quintet Hubbub. His mate for this two-day studio session is Lê Quan Ninh, one of the avant-garde's most thoroughly surprising percussionists. His art generally consists of deliberately choosing minimal physical means (for instance, one floor tom and cymbal) and, through the use of unorthodox techniques, squeezing out of them a maximum of sounds and mental images. His resourcefulness and creativity are endless, and this recording proves it once more. Blondy's approach to the piano is also very percussive and encompasses keys, strings, and wooden frame. But he can also play gracious spontaneous melodies (Exaltatio Utriusque Mundi). Despite the appearance of many unusual sounds, it remains easy to separate the improvisers' individual inputs. In fact, in a couple of these six pieces, they remain camped in their positions, developing parallel but separate vocabularies. But things gel marvelously in La Verticale Reposée and the closing Vers la Septième Solitude ("Toward the Seventh Solitude," a beautiful title), the latter Feldman-esque in its nakedness.
François Couture l All Music Guide l August 2003