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This box set should include a warning sticker — something along the lines of “Caution: if you’re already on the verge of giving up your career to bask in the glow of Montréal’s music scene, proceed with caution.” It’s already too late for me. Consider yourselves warned.
Perhaps you’ve dismissed it as a bunch of perpetual wrong notes, compensation for poor technique or just a glorified warm-up, but free improvisation is not leaving our universe any time soon. It’s a “style” that demands your attention, as it can be beautiful, brash, cold, confusing, spiritual, frightening and soothing all at once — and regardless of whether he likes it or not, every self-respecting jazz musician must react to its gulf at some point in his life.
This four-disc collection from Montréal label No Type is a beyond-stellar example of the “genre” — there’s that attempt at description once again. Culled from the work of regular performers at Montréal’s Casa del Popolo (managed by Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s Mauro Pezzente and Kiva Stimac), the discs represent four different experimental ensembles — each of whom, though they generally adhere to an acoustic instrumentation and aesthetic, explore the furthest possible reaches of their instruments, essentially eschewing any bit of history and tradition that existed before the first note hits the practice space. Oh, it’s obvious that everyone involved knows his theory and exactly what he should play, but they’ve rid their systems of conformity and convention and replaced them with instinct.
To the uninitiated, this music may sound similar; you have to experience all four discs back-to-back in order to really appreciate, understand and experience each act’s subtlety, sublime nature and uniqueness. That might seem like lethal hazing, but if you don’t suffer a psychotic episode, you’re officially in the club.
The first disc introduces PO (“Provocative Operations”), a quartet of drums, contrabass, electric guitar and (!) prepared guitars (i.e. putting screws in the strings, tuning down to C with rubber shoved under the nut, soaking them in turpentine then throwing them down a hill into a swamp, etc.), who offer a minimalistic performance and a focus on color. I sounds as if everyone were given a bow and told to not play his instrument in any previously-established manner. A semblance of style becomes evident on the bluesy III: there is an actual developing rhythmic ostinato and fixed tempi for a great deal of the tune, but it’s dark jazz in the vein of… no, it’s too skewed for even a David Lynch film. VII presents a complex weaving of strong gamelan overtones, including windchime-like sounds and microtonal string squeaks and melodies — a la something out of George Crumb’s Black Angels.
Duo ’Gypt Gore (also featuring Godspeed’s Thierry Amar and guitarist Andrew Dickson) open disc two with Angular Momentum, a complete shift from the previous disc; a duet of sax and guitar skitters in a series of scales that become increasingly busy and intricate over the course of eight and a half minutes. As with a number of tracks on this collection, Flakes combines and parodies several elements of what we’ve heard from the past: Wes Montgomery style octaves with hyperactive-and-hopped-up-on-smack Coltrane performances. ’Gypt Gore’s lack of skinned percussion is a bit unnerving at first, but after a spell seems natural — you’ll find yourself wondering why more artists don’t ditch their drummers.
The Chris Burns, Nicolas Caloia, John Heward trio is like nothing you’d expect from a guitar/bass/drums trio outfit — even after submitting to the previous discs. There are shades of rockabilly, Joe Pass’s legacy, Bossa, rock and funk that emerge, disappear within seconds and repeat over the course of tracks such as presence #2. presence #3 and presence #4 present themselves in a sly, unassuming sort of way: it’s as if the band wants to fool you into thinking they’re not actually playing, but simply tinkering in the studio. Both tracks have the power to send you into a trance. After fifteen minutes you might not have noticed the sparse bass bowing or occasional plucked guitar swirling around your skull, but you’ll remember that it was a good experience, and one that you want to repeat.
The honor of ending this set goes to Balai Méchanique, and what a bombastic finish it is. This sextet is heavy on actual fixed rhythms and locked grooves, blasting pure noise over the top in a very aggressive manner. Les élephants n’oublient jamais borrows twenty minutes of your life and returns the favor with a history of 20th century performance techniques — Stravinsky through Carter through Cage through Varèse through Nono and so on. Racines, the disc’s climax, builds with the elegance of a football team in a swirl of horn splats, otherworldly electronics, distorted guitars and manipulated pianos, then gradually exits in a cloud of ether.
A conclusion for the masses: Admittedly, a box set of this type of material is daunting. The lack of boundaries and anything concrete to grasp, as far as such traditional elements as harmony and meter are concerned, can be intimidating for even five minutes — and you have 228 minutes here. But isn’t music supposed to be a new experience that challenges your way of thinking? Hopefully indie rock and The Beatles and the melting pot of music you’ve sampled through the years has prepared you to handle it.
A conclusion for the converted: Buy it. I mean it. I’ve said enough and hopefully pushed the right buttons so you’ll understand that this is the shit. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a more talented and knowledgeable group of musicians in the field of free improv — guys who live and breathe this stuff. And yes, you’ll wish there was more time in the day to listen to it while you daydream about eking out a living as part of Montréal’s glorious improv scene…
This is a hefty slab of free improvising from Montréal, and electric guitarist and arch-catalyst Sam Shalabi is in the thick of it. It’s less a compilation sampler than an archive of what’s current, featuring four groups, each occupying an entire CD. Shalabi plays on three discs and, although vestiges of his psychedelic excursions and modal flights with the group Shalabi Effect linger, it’s the metallic resilience, the non-porous, non-absorbent attack of his rock improvising that transfers most tellingly into these freer forms.
The name Po stands for “provocative operations.” It alludes presumably to psychologist Edward de Bono’s concept of calculated jolts delivered to unsettle habitual ways of thinking and perceiving. As jolts go, these seven improvisations by Shalabi, fellow guitarist Rainer Wiens, double bassist Alexandre St-Onge and drummer John Heward are easy to take. The guitarists chip away, flecking the music’s surface with stuttering staccato sounds, or unwinding coiled lines in taut spirals. St-Onge slackens strings and works with springiness and the ebb and flow of tension. Heward scours his kit for complementary timbres. Wiens prepares his instrument for added metal edge. Typically the music proceeds with a kind of collective tumbling roll, a revolving mesh of curiously coordinated sounds.
’Gypt Gore is Shalabi with Napalm Jazz saxophonist Philémon. Double bassist Thierry Amar joins them on two tracks; Andrew Dickson adds second guitar to two others. As a duo they specialise in agitation, marking out parallel trails of nervous energy as they scuttle along without any audible goal. Amar and Dickson are more inclined to pause for reflection and ’Gypt Gore allow them that without any hint of introspection on their part. It’s easy to surrender to the pull of the duo’s slipstream but it has to be said that the presence of guests supplies necessary variety to their headlong extrovert chatter.
Chris Burns plays electric guitar in a trio with bassist Nicolas Caloia and drummer John Heward. His sound is more yielding and expressive than Shalabi’s, referencing blues intermittently, and the music here is more open, unhurried and loose textured. Caloia’s accompaniment is subdued yet effective, attentively throbbing and loping or bowing with an ear to the grain. Heward again demonstrates his ability to fit in, to add percussive fibre and colouring that matches the overall feel. Their improvisation, in seven sections, bears the name Presence. At times it slows to a crawl. In the context of Montréal Free as a whole, that pace is welcome. Gentle friction between the instruments at such moments produces some of the most satisfying music in the entire set.
Balai Mecanique put the seal on the collection, ostensibly a churning powerhouse ensemble in which Shalabi, Philemon and Amar are joined by Jesse Levine on keyboards, trombonist Jacques Gravel and drummer Will Glass. The horns relive free jazz memories and periodically stir up maybem. But Levine, using ring modulation and other electronic effects, edges out into the abstract and the group, subsiding from a boil to a simmer, repeatedly goes with him, sometimes for long stretches. The result is variegated music, shifting alignments of instruments, gradations of mood, carrying the threat of eruption even when most sedate. As with Po,’Gypt Gore and Burns/Caloia/Heward, this is improvising in which internal tension between contrasts and correspondences has a cohesive effect and simultaneously generates momentum, binding and driving the music. Shalabi’s sound is well integrated, although still hardboiled and unrelenting.
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For once I have split the label reviews — there are two other No Types in here — because of the variety. Recap the story — web label (with host of wonderful free music) mentioned often times in &etc went ’real’ last year in conjunction with DIFFUSION i MéDIA (purveyors of the empreintes DIGITALes electroacoustic label, also seen across the issues, most recently the last). The first batch of releases were reviewed here (2002_3, 7 and 8), and now we see the next fruits.
The first release (number 1&2) was the double compilation ’Freest of Radicals’ that introduced us to some of the people featured on the ’web — but with new tracks. In an even more extensive production, here we are presented with four studio albums from improv groups representative of the new sound of Montréal, particularly centring on the Casa del Popolo, featuring a slightly overlapping membership. So into it.
First, this is improvised free jazz — furious, complex, intricate, dense and frenzied. To buy it you would have to be interested in the music — 220 minutes is not for the faint hearted. I find that I listen to it somewhat like the music — in bursts. And in the right mood — my first encounter with Po was fairly negative as I was a bit tense — not relaxing music. And finally it is also hard to describe — so these reviews will be more overviews rather than the usual detailed description. I will also work through in a non-sequential order on the basis of accessibility (to me).
The Trio is Chris Burns, Nicolas Caloia and John Heward on guitar, bass and drums, and that more traditional lineup delivers the most accessible album. While the instruments are all given fairly equal value in the mix, the guitar predominates, probably because you can do more with it in sonic terms — even more as we’ll see on the other albums. The first six tracks, titled ’Presence #X’ are relatively short, between 3 to 8 minutes, shift through relaxed twangy guitar and a solo in #1, through the faster #2 with some sliding-ping guitar, to the bass driven #3 in which the instruments gradually coalesce but remain tentative. Strange creaks twangs and scratches on #4 develops a western guitar and buzzy bass, while #5 opens with a melodic guitar/bass set, becoming scratchy and edgy before a short drum solo that presages a more extended solo in #6 with light bass and guitar behind out of which some bendy guitar builds. The final track is a more extended 20 minutes and sees the group work through moods which have been presented individually in the shorter pieces, building from a very soft scrape through some buzzing to a drum pushed noise guitar solo, dropping to a brief drum solo joined by restrained guitar and bass, then almost silence before another gradual development to a shimmeringly percussive climax then fading. The instrumentation is well balanced and the approach never gets too harsh on this disk which makes it the easiest listening — though none are easy.
Next to Belan Mecanique, the superest-group here — six members on sax, trombone, bass, keyboards, guitar and drums. This was my second choice — I initially had favourite, but this set is too diverse for favourites — because while the size of the group tends for a full explosive sound, the diversity of instrumentation provides a broad sound palette which offers the most variation. The group offer a mixture of three short pieces — basically 1 or 2 minute full on aural explosions, and four much longer pieces which allow them to explore their dynamic. The tracks tend to be precipitous rolling sound works where each member is driving away, separately but somehow providing some cohesion, easing back at times. The ear either picks out particular instruments or the engineers place people at different places in the mix at different times. ’Gypt Gore use the idea of action painting in one of their titles, but it works for this too. ’Les elephants n’oublient jamais’ for instance turns through fast honking sax with drums and sliding trombone added, keyboards whizz almost sci fi. A quieter period before the drifting vortex gets bigger and bigger, easing to allow the piano to be heard, then the trombone moves forward, gtr sax and xylophone into a restrained minimal section, piano sax and rim drums swinging in to a soft end. There is a mysterious mood throughout ’Rouages’ that builds to a choppy quacking centre before drifting back to a lighter touch via some descending guitar and trombone laughter. Some more ambient periods (in relative terms) through ’Brule-pourpoint’ emphasise the range that the group can work in while the final ’Racines’ has some nice sax swing and even beer house piano. While there is more democracy in this group, the wind instruments probably are more distinct in the wall of sound with the guitar playing a more supportive role. The keyboards — which include some electronica — provide interesting shading while the rhythm section keeps things moving. The dynamism seen here, and the variations, make this disk very re-approachable.
’Gypt Gore is primarily Philemon (sax) and Sam Shalabi (guitar) who were also in Balai. They carry the energy from that group, but the music is constrained by the instrumentation. The music is exciting — they are like a perpetual motion machine as the sax blows wildly and the guitar picks and plays short fast and furious. Luckily there are periods where the playing is slower or more restrained — the slow and sensuous opening to ’Flakes’ for example or ’Narcoma action painting’ which has the speed but seems somehow more relaxed. On a couple of tracks Thierry Amar (bass on Balai) joins and the playing becomes more relaxed: in ’Corridors tresses’ it adds a depth and the solos are gentler and then ’Blue soon’ has a slow bass entry and the sax and guitar are gentler and there is a sensuous sax solo — perhaps having the rhythm instrument gave the group a more grounded approach. An additional guitar (Andrew Dickson) appears on two tracks and again there seems more restraint on ’Flakes’ and there are drones and some nice duets in ’Navigation pacifique’. The full intensity and focus of this album are what make it less easily absorbed, but it is absorbing and dramatic.
Po present seven ’Provocative Operations’ that combine drums, two guitars (including prepared) and double bass in what was for me the most difficult album. It may be that the instruments have been most removed from their ’natural’ sounds here making it more demanding or the more oblique attacks. It opens with brief warming up before a bubbling machine of sound — scrapey guitar mumbles as the music drives on, and there appears to be some bowing as the music get quieter. In the second part scratching and squeaks with a slow percussion, sounds like violin and piano, building puttery, then ringing prepared guitar, strong bass stepping, a sort of static momentum of sound; lots of short notes with a Chinese feel; growls purrs and plitterplatter to a big climax. The third part has squeaks and growls (of wind?) that dialogue with twangy guitar into a dense web of notes (that sounds like some multitracking but the suggestion is these recordings mirror the live experience). An uncertain rhythm builds through the fourth, the maelstrom of sound including some sitar-guitar, and a rolling drum keeps a couple of guitars in chop. With the fifth piece Po show they can create atmospheric filmic moods, subtle with a Theremin or bowed-saw sound from the guitar. In six things hot up again, the band futzing along as a melodic guitar plays, then paralleled by a fast guitar in a duel/t, softening and rebuilding before some motor-bowed guitar. Finally another more contemplative piece, tinkling, strumming, a hollow percussion (prepared guitar), building a little but held back. This album takes the sounds further and generally brings the listener along with them, if the ears are open and clear.
This is a daring product for No Type to come out with — people who know the Montréal scene will be drawn to it, but in the wider world there may be more uncertainty. While I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone (in fact I wouldn’t for most things I review — we all have such different tastes and preferences) I would suggest that people who are interested in improvised music, tending to the jazz end, seriously consider it whether as an introduction to the form or an addition to their collection. I enjoyed these disks more than I thought I would — improv is an area I am developing my listening skills in. The variety between and within the performances means that there is much that will interest most people, and it offers a great opportunity (at a good price) to listen to some mainly intense music (though there is some light and shade which allow you to recover) which may stretch your expectations, and should definitely excite you.
(I don’t generally do this, but I looked on site and this set costs $40 (can) and had a 10% discount when I was there. As a single album costs $25 (can), this is great value.)
No Type records is a Montréal based record label that puts out on-line mp3, proper CD & vinyl recordings of some of the most outside music emanating from the fringes of Montréal & around the world. The label was founded in Quebec City in October of 1998 by David Turgeon, but the label relocated to Montréal 3 months later & has been there ever since. No Type has established itself as an important outlet for the bourgeoning Montréal free improv music scène releasing music often ignored by most in the music industry.
The label was started because, as Turgeon describes, “we had music to release & no money to make CD’s with” & when pressed to divulge what exactly the label’s vision & mission are, Turgeon notes, “when I try to define it I always fail… I like things that are strange, fun, exciting, damning or preferably all of the above.” In its relatively short existence No Type has earned a reputation for being a beautiful disaster of many “different” styles of music created by artists from all over the map of today’s contemporary music. “I don’t think it makes sense to restrain ourselves to one style,” Turgeon explains, “& besides, the label has always been about not really caring about the musical genre, so long as the music sounds good…”
No Type came into existence at an opportune moment in time & they’ve managed to capitalize on the increased popularity & availability of the mp3 format. But rather than devise a way to exploit the technology for immediate gain, No Type has opted to employ the “online-format” as a means to expose creative musicians whose undeniable talent & originality No Type has been among the first to acknowledge.
No Type’s web site hosts over 70 on-line releases (free with no strings attached) from such now-notables as Napalm Jazz, Books on Tape, Octopus Inc., Dick Richards, morceaux_de_machines, Philémon, GIJoe Killaz & the list goes on & on & on. And the onslaught of No Type releases shows no signs of stopping anytime soon with mp3 & traditional media releases by Coin Gutter, N.Kra, Click Tracy, Claudia Bonarelli & Headphone Science scheduled for release in 2003!
No Type’s biggest success to date has been the recent release of the landmark Montréal Freeimprov 4CD box set. This impressive document featuring the best of the Montréal Free improv scene has been in the making for a long time & this release offers a persistent snapshot of what it must be like spending time in many of the city of sin’s finer free improv venues with beer in hand. The set contains 4 different CD’s of spontaneous constructions by 4 different groups: (1) Po - "provocative operations", (2) ’Gypt Gore, (3) Chris Burns, Nicolas Caloia, John Heward Trio - "presence" & (4) Balai Mécanique. The set is compiled in some pretty impressive packaging with original artwork by some of the performers & liner notes by Mathieu Bélanger. This box set is a gotta have for any fan of the Canadian Free improv landscape.
Visit the web site at www.notype.com for all the details & all the downloads. This site requires a couple of hits because there’s just so much to see, & hear & figure out.
Depuis son ouverture en 2000, la Casa del Popolo donne aux artistes d’ici la chance d’expérimenter. Un laboratoire en quelque sorte, il s’y fomente une nouvelle musique improvisée aux caractères encore mouvants mais fortement montréalais: ce n’est pas Chicago, Londres ou New York. Malgré la vivacité de cette nouvelle culture, les documents sur disque demeurent trop rares. L’étiquette No Type a décidé de combler le manque avec ce coffret de quatre disques. Il ne s’agit pas d’une compilation, mais plutôt du regroupement stratégique de quatre nouveaux albums par autant de formations. La guitare électrique domine, les électroniques sont absentes et au centre de ce cortège on trouve le guitariste Sam Shalabi. Avec le saxophoniste Philémon, il forme le duo ’Gypt Gore, dont la musique a le tonus de la Fire Music afro-américaine. Avec Rainer Wiens (guitare), Alexandre St-Onge (contrebasse) et John Heward (batterie), il adopte le nom de Po et une attitude plus londonnienne, bien que métissée avec le rock improvisé américain et un quelque chose de «cheu nous» dans l’ambiguïté des échanges. Shalabi et Philémon réapparaissent au sein du sextuor Balai mécanique, avec Thierry Amar (Godspeed…), Will Glass, Jacques Gravel et Jesse Levine, pour une séance excessive et follement désordonnée. Un trio beaucoup plus nuancé du guitariste Chris Burns avec le bassiste Nicolas Caloia et Heward complète la matière de ce superbe coffret, que dis-je? de ce Nouveau Testament! Espérons que ceci saura évangéliser les amateurs d’impro libre d’ici et d’ailleurs. 9/10
Montréal Free is an ambitious box set. It wants to push a new scene to the forefront and at the same time make a point: the free improvisation developing in Montréal is different from Chicago, London or Berlin. Granted, it is not as extreme and characteristic as the Tokyo scene that has been documented in the Improvised Music from Japan box set, but that’s not a loss. Not a compilation album, this quadruple CD set packs together four separate albums by four improv groups revolving around the Casa del Popolo, a small café that has fostered a growing leftfield music scene since 2000. All these groups are making their debut on record. Three of them feature guitarist Sam Shalabi (of Shalabi Effect), the most active and dedicated member of this scene. His playing, heavily informed by both Derek Bailey and the noise/lo-fi American scene (think Loren MazzaCane Connors and Thurston Moore) provides an Ariane’s thread through the albums, but the music by itself proves Montréal’s unique character. The musicians draw from Afro-American Free Jazz, Chicago avant-garde jazz and the Berlin and London schools of free improvisation to come up with a powerful, gutsy-yet-tempered form of improv they can call their own. The Po CD, titled Provocative Operations, features drummer John Heward, bassist Alexandre St-Onge, guitarist Rainer Wiens and Shalabi in a stunning studio set full of experienced interplay. ‘Gypt Gore is Shalabi’s duo with saxophonist Philémon, here joined by bassist Thierry Amar and Andrew Dickson on two tracks each. The duo itself also takes part to the sextet Balai Mécanique, along with Amar, drummer Will Glass, trombonist Jacques Gravel and keyboardist Jesse Levine. This group makes up in power and action what it lacks a bit in listening and sharing — it still provides some of the most flooring moments. The fourth CD is a trio session by guitarist Chris Burns, bassist Nicolas Caloia and drummer John Heward, whose artwork provides the visual elements of the box. Whether you care or not about what’s happening in the Montréal underground, Montréal Free remains a very strong set, highly recommended.