Shōen

Originally from Geneva, Shōen has made his home in the rugged terrain of the south of France, where waterfalls cascade from the mountains and rivers etch their way through deep ravines. This lived experience – away from the crowd and grounded in an instinctive connection with the elements – is something he brings into his musical practice. 

Drawing inspiration from the dreams elicited by those surroundings, he uses ambient music to transport the listener to a different plane – a limitless domain away from external pressures, where each person is given the space to let their imagination take flight. For Shōen, then, ambience is not merely a backdrop against which our messy lives take place; rather, it’s a stage on which the multiple aspects of our identities can come together and find harmony. 

Shōen develops these themes across multiple creative projects. In the studio, he works with a hybrid modular setup, making new recordings every day as the raw material for sampling and arrangement. On the radio, he has regular guests on his long-running Piñata Radio show ‘Cosmic Connexion’, a beacon for the ambient scene in Montpellier of which he is very proud. Finally, there is rich overlap, too, with his practice of hypnotherapy and meditation.