Bernard Falaise, Pierre Labbé, Rémi Leclerc et Frédéric Roverselli sont des habitués de la scène de la musique actuelle, et leur facilité à improviser les a bien servis sur ce premier disque de Papa Boa. Rock, électro, free, pop, jazz ou country rien ne résiste à leurs pulsions créatrices éclatées, et pourtant, ils ont accouché d’un album d’une formidable cohérence. Des invités viennent poser leur voix sur les musiques, parfois avec des petits contes surréalistes (sur Un lutin, Marie-Jo Thério plaque son plus bel accent de Moncton contre les guitares tonitruantes de Falaise) qui contribuent à l’esprit joyeux et imaginatif de Papa Boa. Le groupe ne compte pas faire de spectacles, mais Falaise sera à Victo avec Kllaxon Gueule, le 2] mai.
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press@1677
For Montréal improviser Martin Tétreault. a turntable is a machine for literal deconstruction, rich with infinite ionic possibilities as its own source of sound. “For Île bizarre, I don’t use a lot of records.” asserts Tétreault. “Most of the sounds come from the turntahles themselves — the sound of motors, prepared needles, prepared records. It’s more ‘musique d’objet.’ More texture research than, for instance, [1998’s] Dur noyau dur with René Lussier, which was a mix of using records and using the turntable and with Japanese turntablist Otomo Yoshihide, on 21 situation, it’s mostly turntable with a little bit of sampling. Every project has its own direction.”
He continues: “All the sound are well-kept secrets in the [turntable] because when this object is manufactured, it’s not made for this purpose. You put of using turntable for the secret sounds inside. Cartridges and needles are microphones, so it is possible to catch a lot of sound inside the object itself. And with prepared records I prepare the circular surface - put stickers on it, sound it with some sandpaper — so there are more rhythmic possibilities to make it more noisy, more lyrical. [The turntable] is more of a musical instrument because I develop its language. I can control it. It is not just to listen to a record on it.”
Tétrtault, who adds springs to his cartridges and balloons to the tone arms will occasionally plug a guitar distortion pedal in the turntable. But no samplers. Instead he concentrates on coaxing sounds from his 20 decks - including old fashioned elementary school Califone record players — and is his collection of 3000 records. And while many of the turntables are heavily customised. Tétreault has taken to improvising in their construction and building them from scratch. His most recent creation is a turntable with two tone arms. He attributes his unorthodox approach to his background in fine arts. In fact, he insists it was purely by accident that he switched to music in 1984.
“One day I was cutting paper in fine arts class. I was doing very minimalist stuff. One day I decide to cut on something else other than paper. I cut a record (in half). I reversed one side and put side B with side A and put a needle on it and wow, it works. So that you take a record of a sitar and record of big band and take a different side of each and glue it together and create your own orchestra only on one record. Most of the time when I go into my studio to work I think I am doing more fine art than music. For me, it is like working on a canvas.”
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press@1668
Two stalwarts ot the Eastern Canadian Jazz scene join forces on La vie oui bat, chevreuil. Guitarist René Lussier and percussionist Pierre Tanguay perform a duet that combines multiple instrumentation, voice, theater, a background chorus, and an odd twist on originality. When they are having fun, the music takes on a lighthearted demeanor with happy voice insertions and rhythmic lines, but when they get serious the music turns complex, sullen, and intricate (L’étang/ Salade du chef/ L’élephant/ Reproduction/ La toune dure/ Le Guizmoute gris/ La bête puante/ Le chameau/ La vie qui bat/ Sentier pédestre/ Saucisses et mise en marché/ Le coq/ La dinde marocaine/ Le chien de la voisine/ Le Tanguay des bois/ Le coléoptere/ Eagle ’56/ La poule de campagne/ Le Lussier des champs/ L’âne des montagnes/ Le mammouth commun/ Le petit cheval. 46: 16). These artists are about turning sounds into a musical experience, even it the music is not easily accessible and the experience is demanding Lussier is a creative improviser, using the saw-like daxophone as well as the guitar to continuously alter the direction ot the music. It can be wild and wooly, or relatively calm, but it is constantly changing and ambitious. The tully improvised portions at hrst seem directionless, but it all seems to tie together as Lussier invades strange and unusual realms ot pure sound Tanguay plays a wide array of percussion instruments and drums that add to the intricacy of the improvisations. Yet, just as quickly they put on their tun-loving iaces to add a carnival atmosphere to the periormance. Ten selections, grouped as Le catalogue, are 20 to 50 second alternating outbursts oi solo sound as each artist switches instruments to create a quilt oi many musical colors. Musicians trom Canada continue to impress the Jazz world, and Lussier and Tanguay are among the most impressive.
blogue@press-1052
press@1052
Another set of dispatches from this Montréal collective of musique actuel-ites who continue to dazzle with their transgressive music. It is music that balances improvisation and composition in a singular fusion of jazz, rock, modern classical, musique concrète and turntablism. Callas: La diva et le vinyle is part musical and phonographic history lesson and part plunderphonics. 1997 was the 20th anniversary of opera diva Maria Callas’s death, and the 100th anniversary of Emil Berliner, who started EMI Records in Montréal. On Callas: La diva et le vinyle, clarinettist Lepage and DJ turntablist assassin, Tétreault have created a hilarious, irreverent playful tribute to these historical recorded events. Taking old recordings of Callas, Tétreault scratches, cuts and pitch shifts fragments of her voice, at one point making it sound like a fire alarm, while Lepage compliments Callas’s voice with alternating lyrically melancholic and joyous improvised phrasings. Callas: La diva et le vinyle is an exciting meeting of multiple juxtapositions: between old and new voices, between the stylised rituals of opera and the freedom of contemporary sound art and between live and recorded music.
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press@1071_101
Percussionist Tanguay, and trombonist Walsh are no less ambitious on Midi tapant, blurring the lines between spontaneous music and formal composition. But while Callas was a dazzling technical feat, Midi tapant is far lower key affair. Beginning with minimalist drone patterns, the two then drop in manipulated world music samples like gamelan and chanting voices, as well as big band sounds, against which Tanguay and Walsh play and create a new sonic world that is soothing yet exhilarating, searching yet knowing, exotic yet familiar. What is real and what isn’t, Midi tapant doesn’t answer that question because it doesn’t have to. In the end, the answer begins where it ends in the listener’s imagination.
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press@1071_102
Literally translated to mean Orchestra With Nothing to Lose, L’Orkestre des pas perdus is the most straightforward of the three artists. That is not to slight this six-piece brass ensemble. Indeed, on Maison douce maison, they move effortlessly from funk to New Orleans marching band style to Arabic-like melodies and even throwing in some ska. The album works fine on the feet, though perhaps, next time they could concentrate more on the head.
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press@1071_103