Composition, arrangements, production - Benjamin Gibert
Mixing and mastering engineer, additional production - Guillaume Saint Etienne

Taste of Sap is an immersive vocal experiment, born from a long improvisation session with a harmonizer. The title is sensual — it means “the taste of sap.” The track gradually thickens, like sap itself: fluid, viscous, enveloping. Conceived as an end-of-night chant around a fire, it searches, finds form, and eventually becomes a ceremonial anthem at dawn.

No language is used: only raw vocal material, spontaneous, organic phonemes that emerge viscerally. The voice is the main musical instrument.

A small vintage, portable Casio synthesizer punctuates the whole piece in playful dialogue with the vocal improvisations. Taste of Sap evokes a primal, ancestral imaginary and prepares the arrival of the sun at daybreak.

Taste of sap

Benjamin Gibert ventures into mountains, forests and megacities in search of secret sounds and stray signals. He collects raw sonic material — using a microphone and a notebook — then plays with nesting, soldering, fragmenting and merging sounds. His sonic objects often flirt with acoustic or electronic instruments, forming abstract narratives and opening doors to invisible worlds. His work seeks to create immersive forms where reality and imagination, landscapes and fiction coexist.

Coming from a background in contemporary dance, he develops a physical and spatial approach to sound — conceived for deep listening and movement. Field recording is his main tool, which he combines with electronic textures, evolving rhythmic structures, and a singular use of the voice: without words or language, treated simply as raw, organic, vibrant material.

He has completed numerous residencies in France, New Zealand and Chile, and has performed in France, Spain and Japan.

He released Gemmes (2018), an EP composed for the Royal Abbey of Fontevraud; followed by Taihua (2019), an album created and produced in New Zealand. His upcoming EP, Nightingales, will be released in summer 2025. It is a musical fiction at the crossroads of IDM, organic house and ambient, imagining what a secret forest rave might sound like.

Benjamin Gibert’s work stands out for its way of connecting places, natural sounds and electronic textures. He is drawn to liminal spaces — between wakefulness and sleep, human and non-human, natural and synthetic. His sonic universe is shaped by influences ranging from Oneohtrix Point Never to A.G. Cook, as well as Steve Reich, Björk and D’Eon.