Releasing Records in 2025: Art, Passion, or Mission?

Releasing Records in 2025: Art, Passion, or Mission?

Record launches, roundtable, and DJ Set as part of the Afrosonica – Soundscapes exhibition

In a context where physical formats coexist with digital distribution, and where musical traditions from around the world are receiving renewed attention, forms of reappropriation, and circulation — what does it mean today to “release a record”?
This roundtable brings together professionals with complementary backgrounds — including label founders, record shop owners, researchers, artists, and cultural activists — who work at the crossroads of creation, archiving, and transmission. Together, they will explore the contemporary stakes of record publishing: Is it an artistic gesture? A form of militant passion? A mission of cultural preservation? An ethical (or not) business? A space for sonic and social innovation?
At the heart of the discussion: editorial choices, relationships with musicians, the circulation of works, listening formats, audiences, the economy of the recording industry, connections between local production and global markets, and the balance between faithfulness to tradition and openness to experimentation.
Speakers:

• Vincent Dehoux : ethnomusicologist and author of several albums dedicated to the music of Central Africa

• Vincent de Roguin : artist, musician, and publisher, founder of the Auryfa label, and involved in record projects dedicated to experimental music.

• Franck Descollonges : founder and director of the independent label Heavenly Sweetness

• Olivier Duport : publisher and co-founder of the artistic collective FLEE Project, which operates as an independent publisher, record label, and curatorial platform

• Madeleine Leclair : curator of the Department of Ethnomusicology and Sound Archives at MEG, editor of the MEG-AIMP label, co-curator of the Afrosonica – Soundscapes exhibition, sound artist

• Mathias Liengme : musician, editor of Fruit Records label, research associate for the Afrosonica – Soundscapes exhibition

• Karl Mayala : record store owner, ambianceur and founder of Brazzaville Records, a cultural center dedicated to Congolese rumba and the promotion of African music

• Cyril Yeterian : musician and publisher, founder of the label and record store Bongo Joe Records

Program
5:00 PM
Presentation of two records released for the Afrosonica – Soundscapes exhibition:
Central Africa : Sanza Music in the Land of the Gbaya (MEG-AIMP) and Afrosonica – Soundscapes (MEG-AIMP & FLEE Project). With Vincent Dehoux, Olivier Duport, Madeleine Leclair and Mathias Liengme

6:00 PM
Roundtable discussion moderated by Olivier Duport
With Vincent de Roguin, Franck Descollonges, Madeleine Leclair, Mathias Liengme, Karl Mayala and Cyril Yeterian

7 :30 PM
DJ set by

• 19h30-20h30 : Madeleine Leclair and Mathias Liengme
• 20h30-21h : Olivier Duport
• 21h-21h30 : Franck Descollonges
• 21h30-22h : Cyril Yeterian