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Snipettes! est la 150e parution sous Ambiances Magnétiques, un tour de force pour un label de musiques actuelles. Tétreault s’y est amusé en 1e partie à marier la musique populaire instrumentale, en utilisant un 33 tours de la musique d’Eddie Osborne (orgue et bongos) avec la musique contemporaine (une sélection de vinyles de musiques sérieuses). Le résultat est intriguant et drôle. En 2e partie, Morceaux choisis 1984-1986 est une compilation de titres expérimentaux composés pendant cette période.
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Since this is the first post on a currently-unknown blog that most future readers most likely won’t return to, I’ll keep introductions to a minimum before getting onto the music. This blog is an extension of my radio show on WHRW 90.5 FM, also called Meshes of the Afternoon. Because I have no access to college radio during summers and breaks, and because I can blather on about music a lot more online than I can on the air, I’ve given in to the tidal wave of music blogs to help me pass the time.
To celebrate the beginning of something new, here’s a selection off turntablist Martin Tétreault’s new release, Snipettes! The cd, released this year by Canada’s greatest avant-garde record label, Ambiances Magnétiques, collects tracks recorded between 1984 and 1990. The two suites here, Snipettes! and Morceaux Choisis, were first released together in 1992 as a limited edition cassette in a run of 250 copies. While not completely unheard by audiences until this year, Snipettes! is, for all intents and purposes, a lost recording that has languished in the AM archives until now.
Tétreault made his name a few years prior with 1990’s Des pas et des mois, recorded with René Lussier and Michel F Côté. Though Tétreault has moved onto a vinyl-less style of playing the turntable, working only with the noises produced by the mechanism itself, these early recordings expand on the work of Christian Marclay in their reckless experimentation and sometimes outrageous sense of humor. Gagarine, USS Enterprise and a Cosmic Peddler is a piece “scored” for turntable, featuring samples from a kitschy organ and bongos record, a Hammond instructional lp, early electronic music, and the voices of William Shatner, Eddie Paskey, and Leonard Nimoy for narration (who reappear regularly throughout the album).
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This recording starts with a countdown to blastoff, which morphs into a news report of Yuri Gagarin’s first trip in a spaceship, then a rendition of The Tennessee Waltz, a snatch of dialogue from Star Trek and a sales pitch for a how-to guide to playing the organ. That’s just the first minute or so of this very witty travelogue through the fevered recombinant imagination of Martin Tétreault. Snipettes! began life as a 250-copy limited edition cassette in 1992 and is now being reissued on its 15th anniversary, and if you missed it the first time around, you don’t have an excuse now. Then, as now, anything Tétreault does is of great interest.
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This reissue of what was previously released as a limited edition cassette is perhaps one of Tétreault’s best works! Snipettes! consists of 22 short pieces and one long piece (31+ minutes), all recorded between 1984 and 1990. These pieces come from early in the music career of Quebecois turntablist, Martin Tétreault. At this point, Martin was using two turntables, one mostly featured an album by Eddie Osborne called Baldwin Organ & Bongos, while with the other turntable he samples records on modern classical and musique concrète. He also used tape recorders and a shortwave radio. The recorded voices include Russian cosmonaut, Yuri Gagarin, William Shatner & Leonard Nimoy in their Star Trek voices, plus a variety of French actors. Records by Varèse, Luc Ferrari and the New York Jazz Quartet are utilized. Each piece gets a partial page in the enclosed booklet explaining where the sample is taken from and sometimes there is more info then the sounds we hear on the CD. What I find most charming about this disc is that it sounds like an artifact from a long lost era when folks just used turntables & records, before there were samplers.
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Aujourd’hui connu surtout pour ses explorations bruitistes, le platiniste montréalais Martin Tétreault a connu des débuts nettement plus accessibles, qu’on peut maintenant découvrir ou redécouvrir par le biais de cette réédition de ses deux [sic] premières cassettes, parues en 1992. Également nommé Snipettes (morceaux 1 à 11), la première combinait musique concrète réalisée à la table tournante et trafiquage de morceaux populaires repris à l’orgue. La seconde, Morceaux choisis (titres 12 à 23), était une compilation de premières expériences d’échantillonnage pratiquées dans les années 80. Les deux sont autant musicales et humoristiques qu’audacieuses, sans trop de lien avec la nature académique [sic!] de la plupart des parutions de Tétrault ou d’Ambiances Magnétiques. On a l’impression d’y trouver un pendant queb à Some of My Best Friends are DJs de Kid Koala. Pas un précurseur. Autrement dit, le truc a remarquablement bien vieilli. (3,9/5)
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Lynda Gaudreau est chorégraphe et Document 4 est le dernier volet d’un projet, intitulé Encyclopædia, qui a regroupé des artistes de différentes disciplines (danse, vidéo, arts visuels, art sonore et architecture). Le livre rend compte de la démarche, tandis que le disque qu’il contient permet d’entendre les musiques que le platiniste Martin Tétreault a créées pour les spectacles. On est d’un bout à l’autre dans l’exploration bruitiste et le glitch. Dans un autre genre, Ambiances Magnétiques réédite Snipettes, qui regroupe de courtes pièces de Tétreault parues, jadis, en cassette, du temps qu’il utilisait beaucoup la citation (plutôt que le bruit) et l’humour. (3/5)
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Reissue of ARM 02.