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adapted from the press release by Ben Hogwood<\/strong><\/p>\n Back in 2006, the French label InFin\u00e9<\/strong> started stitching unlikely threads between classical music and club culture, laying early groundwork for what would come to be called \u201cnew-classical\u201d, a \u201cnew\u201d that felt hybrid and forward-looking rather than the narrower \u201cneo.\u201d The wager was simple: treat the studio like an instrument and let composition, production, and performance bleed into each other.<\/p>\n By early 2007, kindred spirits at Erased Tapes were formalizing a similar impulse in the UK, crystallizing experiments that had flickered across ECM releases and artists like Aphex Twin, Philip Glass, and Brian Eno. The vision also nods to Glenn Gould, the Canadian pianist who famously embraced the studio\u2019s power to do what the concert hall could not, a perfectionism that quietly rewired modern recording practice.<\/p>\n InFin\u00e9\u2019s first catalog statement set the tone. Fresh from winning the Orl\u00e9ans International Piano Competition, Francesco Tristano recorded his first \u201cnon-classical\u201d album for the sonic alchemy and folding in Autechre, Pascal Dusapin, Jeff Mills, and Tristano himself.<\/p>\n Two years later, in October 2008, the label staged a landmark at the Philharmonie de Paris: Detroit icon Carl Craig with the orchestra Les Si\u00e8cles under Fran\u00e7ois-Xavier Roth, Tristano\u2019s\u00a0arrangements, and the discreet touch of Berlin techno pioneer Moritz von Oswald \u2014 a bridge between symphonic muscle and machine pulse.<\/p>\n Since then, InFin\u00e9 has kept walking that ridgeline with artists such as pianists Bruce Brubaker<\/a><\/strong> and Vanessa Wagner<\/a><\/strong>, cellist Gaspar Claus<\/a><\/strong>, percussionist Lucie Antunes<\/strong>, producers Rone<\/strong>, Arandel<\/a><\/strong>, Murcof<\/strong>, Labelle<\/strong>, and more recently Japan\u2019s Kaito<\/strong>. In June 2021, Rone\u2019s repertoire, arranged by Romain Allender, took over Lyon with a 90-piece orchestra and choir; the LOOPING project has since sold out philharmonic halls across France and Europe.<\/p>\n In 2019, the label launched a singular series with Paris\u2019s Mus\u00e9e de la Musique, inviting contemporary musicians to \u201cplay\u201d the museum\u2019s historic instruments, not as relics, but as living tools. After albums devoted to Bach and to guitars, new chapters focused on harps and the oud are slated for 2025 and 2026. In 2024, InFin\u00e9 also teamed with IRCAM on a program that fuses research and art: Murcof inaugurates the line with a 360\u00b0 project spanning an album, ambisonic live performance, and soon, VR.<\/p>\n InFin\u00e9\u2019s third and most recent collaboration with Mus\u00e9e de le Musique was for Mary Lattimore and Julianna Barwick\u2019s upcoming project, continuing a shared mission to bridge historical instrumentation with contemporary innovation. \u201cWe were so lucky to have access to this experience. There was a lot of reverence, working with people with such warmth and enthusiasm, bringing these instruments into a modern context, literally taken off the shelves of the museum,\u201d says Lattimore. \u201cWe wanted to honor the past while making music that we feel is a true expression of ourselves,\u201d adds Barwick.<\/p>\n On October 10th, Vanessa Wagner released the Complete Piano Etudes of Philip Glass as a special 4-LP box set, a format that underscores its significance as a cornerstone for both the pianist and InFin\u00e9. Each \u00c9tude forms a distinct musical world, complete in itself. But heard as a whole, the cycle unfolds with remarkable depth: motifs and resonances weave through the pieces, revealing a vast emotional architecture where each work amplifies the others, enriching the collection\u2019s overall meaning.<\/p>\n Nearly twenty years in, InFin\u00e9 remains refreshingly uninterested in borders, geographic or stylistic. True to its roots yet restless by design, the label continues to operate as a laboratory where innovation serves listeners who like their music curious, porous, and resolutely modern.\u00a0<\/p>\n Listen \/ Buy<\/strong><\/p>\n