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29 January 2013
By François Couture in Monsieur Délire (Québec), January 29, 2013

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“… the album features a strong sense of unity, thanks to the noise-based approach that ruled all of these encounters. Convincing stuff.”

[Translation] Rimouski-based artist Éric Normand releasing an album on Monotype, one of the best-rated experimental music labels of today? Cool! And it’s a very strong record to boot, one that highlights his work as a noisician. Here he plays home-made electronics and bass effects, in a series of duets with partners he rarely works with (partners he is not faithful to, hence the title’s “low-fi” — the sound is stellar, but it’s a play on “fidélité”, the French word for faithfulness). Christine Sehnaoui Abdelnour, Martin Tétrault, Sébastien Cirotteau, and Mario Gauthier each gets one or two turns with Normand. Despite that, the album features a strong sense of unity, thanks to the noise-based approach that ruled all of these encounters. Convincing stuff.

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28 January 2013

The 16th Opus prizes winners were announced yesterday, January 27, 2013, in Montréal. The “Album of the year — world music” is Lieux imaginés by Cordâme

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23 January 2013
By Alain Brunet in La Presse (Québec), January 23, 2013

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“Très active sur la scène de la musique actuelle, elle vit toujours à Montréal, et mène actuellement des recherches sur la «gestuelle, l’incarnation et la mémoire culturelle en musique improvisée».”

Venus de l’extérieur, les musiciens anglos ayant choisi Montréal ne sont pas exclusivement dans la bulle hipster. Loin de là! Voici un exemple probant parmi tant d’autres: née à Kitchener en 1982, l’Ontarienne Charity Chan a complété un premier cycle universitaire à McGill. Ses études de piano l’ont menée à l’improvisation libre, à tel point qu’elle a voulu poursuivre dans cette pratique en s’inscrivant à la maîtrise en Improvisation Contemporaine au Mills College d’Oakland où elle a étudié auprès du guitariste Fred Frith et de la contrebassiste Joelle Léandre. Même institution californienne où étudia feu Dave Brubeck auprès de Darius Milhaud dans les années 40!

Très active sur la scène de la musique actuelle (au sens impro-jazz-noise-machin) depuis plus ou moins 2005, elle vit toujours à Montréal, et mène actuellement des recherches sur la «gestuelle, l’incarnation et la mémoire culturelle en musique improvisée». Elle a aussi étudié avec moult improvisateurs de renom, Jean Derome, Malcom Goldstein, Joe McPhee, membres du Sun RÂ Arkestra. A travaillé avec Lori Freedman, Sam Shalabi, Scott Thompson, John Heward, Fred Frith, Maggie Nichols, Joëlle Léandre et autres Frank Gratkowski. Membre de l’International Society of Improvising Musicians et de l’American Musicological Society, elle a présenté le fruit de ses recherches au Guelph Jazz Festival Colloquium (université de Guelph) et à l’International Society for Improvised Music (université du Michigan, Ann Arbor).

Ce mercredi à la Casa del Popolo, la pianiste se produit avec des musiciens américains dont on parlera beaucoup au cours des années qui viennent: d’abord le trompettiste Peter Evans, assurément une pointure de la nouvelle génération dont on vante le talent depuis un moment déjà, puis le batteur Weasel Walter et le contrebassiste Tom Blancarte.

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10 January 2013
By Kurt Gottschalk in The Squid’s Ear (USA), January 10, 2013

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“It’s a deep and woody band, never quite fired up, certainly never uptempo, and yet always moving forward, like a clock, perhaps, viewed under a microscope.”

The intriguingly named Mecha Fixes Clocks is an ongoing project of the Montreal percussionist Michel F Côté. It’s a sort of pseudonym, cleverly sharing initials with the composer, and a bit of an explosion of personality, taking a seemingly very introverted approach to music-making and exploding it onto sometimes as many as a dozen performers. And it is, maybe, a sort of methodology, a working process that has been suggested by the composer as a repair shop with musicians as mechanics working to patch up a century already in disrepair. It’s a big job and, for that matter, a pretty huge clock.

From the challenging and ever-changing groups Bruire and Klaxon Gueule to his own evocative works (see Flat fourgonnette (Mescal Free Style), his fascinating take on American song), Côté has excelled at soundscape-with-subtext, and the Mecha Fixes Clocks records might be his most strangely expressive yet. Teoria dell’elasticità di Girolamo Papariello, the third Mecha disc, was recorded live in studio in 2010 and then mixed and constructed by Côté. Consistent yet irregular rhythms run through the seven tracks and backing drones that seem electronic but may be provided by the small string section adhere the improvising instruments, which are allowed to play free jazz at times but never to dominate. At other moments, the strings rise into a proper quartet against the softly banging buzzing of an upright bass. Of course any of those could also be the turntables of Martin Tétrault, so deftly set in the mix as to become a virtual trompe l’oreille.

Côté also has a knack for drawing from different areas of Montreal’s music scene, and this 11-piece assembly of Mecha Fixes Clocks includes Lori Freedman and Philippe Lauzier on bass clarinets, Elwood Epps on trumpet, Josh Zubot and Jean René on strings, Alexandre St-Onge on contrabass and Bernard Falaise on electric guitar. It’s a deep and woody band, never quite fired up, certainly never uptempo, and yet always moving forward, like a clock, perhaps, viewed under a microscope.

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10 January 2013
By Stanley Péan in Voir (Québec), January 10, 2013

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“Petite formation certes, mais grands musiciens. Jubilatoire, vraiment.”

Après deux albums et un DVD en concert, l’iconoclaste trio nous revient avec cet opus réunissant trois thèmes originaux du saxophoniste Jean Derome (notamment l’envoûtant Palestine, tellement à propos ces jours-ci), un emprunt au répertoire de Broadway (The Best Things in Life Are Free) relu avec inventivité, mais sans irrévérence, ainsi que des clins d’œil à Lennie Tristano et Éric Dolphy (superbe pièce The Baron, dédiée au mentor du contrebassiste Normand Guilbeault, l’immortel Charles Mingus). Nourri par l’indispensable pulsation rythmique du batteur Pierre Tanguay, l’ensemble déploie sur ces canevas ses audaces, sa bonne humeur et sa créativité habituelles. Petite formation certes, mais grands musiciens. Jubilatoire, vraiment.

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7 January 2013
By François Couture in Monsieur Délire (Québec), January 7, 2013

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“The works that stand out are Bernier’s and Bosetti’s.”

Montreal-based poet Fortner Anderson has published in November 2012 his most ambitious project to date. It consists of a book of poetry, Annunciations, featuring three poems based on texts published by NASA, the UN, and the US military base at Guantanamo, and a 3-CD box set also entitled Annunciations. Anderson has recorded several readings of his poems, which he has sent to nine sound artists. The album consists in three CDs of three pieces each, for a total duration of 95 minutes. All three poems are represented on each CD, but artistic visions and processes vary greatly. Some, like Ned Bouhalassa, Nicolas Bernier, Andy Williams and John Berndt, have lightly treated Anderson’s voice and created an electroacoustic setting for it. Others, like Christian Calon and Chantal Dumas, went deeper into vocal treatments. Alessandro Bosetti pushed the concept further by applying to his own voice the water-boarding technique discussed in the third poem. Finally, Christian Kesten redacted all the words from Anderson’s tape, keeping only the breathing sounds. […] The works that stand out are Bernier’s (for the balance between Anderson’s words and the sonic environment) and Bosetti’s (for its originality and oddity). Book and triple CD set sold separately.

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