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29 juin 2012
Par Ken Waxman in The WholeNote #17:10 (Canada), 29 juin 2012

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«The sessions here demonstrate successful applications»

Adding another voice to an established improvising ensemble is more precarious than it seems. With a group having worked out strategies allowing for individual expression within a larger context — and without notated cues — the visitor (s) must be original without unbalancing the interface. Luckily the sessions here demonstrate successful applications.

Invited to Rimouski, Quebec to give a workshop, British saxophonist Evan Parker also participated in Vivaces (Tour de Bras TDB9006 CD), recorded with the 12-piece Grand groupe régional d’improvisation libérée (GGRIL) . Made up of players from different musical backgrounds living in the Lower Saint-Lawrence region, GGRIL is distinctive in that the group includes two electric guitarists, an electric bassist plus two accordionists, but only three horn players. Using these circumstances to best advantage, these tracks, alternately directed by Parker and GGRIL violinist Raphaël Arsensault, employ the accordionists’ tremolo pulsing and sweeping electronic oscillations to thicken the bottom. With upturned slices from the strings and barnyard cries from the squeeze boxes, two clarinets and the tuba, it’s often Parker’s restrained undertone that gives a linear shape to the improvisation. The best example of this is Marcottage that manages to include contributions from nearly every GGRILer. As Parker pushes forward with staccato split tones he’s backed by sympathetic grace notes from fellow guest, trombonist Scott Thomson, and skittering, slurring accordion lines. Triangle pings signal a timbral shift and presage a ferocious solo from the saxophonist. Band members’ responses range from rebounding percussion ratamacues, crackling electronic runs from the guitars and bass plus one accordionist sounding a faux balladic line as the other pumps powerfully. Finally the mass cacophony downshifts to a satisfying connective rumble.

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20 juin 2012
Par Marc Medwin in Dusted Magazine (ÉU), 20 juin 2012

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Editions Mego inaugurates a new vinyl reissue imprint with two titles from the GRM catalog. The music represents the diversity that was the guiding spirit of composers in the Groupe de Recherche Musicales, founded by Pierre Schaeffer and of which Guy Reibel was an early member. Yet, there are some striking similarities that unite these two mid-1970s slabs of acousmatic music.

The story of how Pierre Schaeffer, first a radio engineer and then a composer, experimented in the late 1940s, having only French-radio turntables and stunning intuition, creating what he called “Musique Concrete” using sounds from every-day life, has become integral to a study of music history. These experiments gave rise to his concept of acousmatic sound, which, very briefly, involves sound whose sources remain unseen by the listener. Less well known is his return to something more like traditional musical values, as represented by this, his final musical work, completed in 1975.

In Le Trièdre Fertile, Schaeffer explores frequency, duration and intensity, and while these concerns informed some of his earlier compositions, here, they are addressed using purely electronic sounds. Listening to these transparent timbres emerge and disappear in starkly juxtaposed blocks does conjure shades of Schaeffer’s earliest musical works, such as the railroad studies of 1948, but with electronic sound synthesis, he can achieve infinitely complex gradations of microtone and vibrato in tandem with constantly morphing timbres. Listen to the hammered pitches slide in and out of focus in the work’s first two minutes, both individually and in relationship to each other. As the piece progresses, elements of drone (not so common in his earlier pieces) swell and fade, sometimes with microtonal inflections, sometimes creating gorgeous harmonies I can only describe as post-Romantic or unisons that sound as if they’ve emerged from the Gregorian Chant repertoire. Simultaneously, non-pitched timbres add layers of rhythmic complexity. These are in no way similar to the shockingly human sounds that Xenakis was using to create his La Legende D’Eer; rather, the emphasis seems to be on beauty and clarity of line and rhythm. Schaeffer and synthesist Bernard Durr created a fascinating kind of new counterpoint that would have yielded many fruitful paths of discovery, if other concerns had not occupied Schaeffer in later life.

At just about the same time, Schaeffer’s former assistant, Guy Reibel, was engaged in creating his first major foray into the acousmatic world. Reibel was born 26 years later than Schaeffer, and though completed a year before Le Trièdre Fertile, the opening several minutes of Franges du Signe delves deeper into the sonic landscape his teacher was creating. The wavy timbres, distinct at first, coalesce into an increasingly intense and unclear swarm of interwoven lines, traversing the stereo spectrum, but, like Coltrane’s Meditations, bits of pitched clarity can be heard, as with the little melodic figure at 3:37. Long sustains are integral to Franges’s structure, like the massive drone beginning at 15:33; even when these swatches of sound fray and fragment, their dismembered components inundate rapidly rather than allowing themselves to form orderly lines or groups. While its timbres seem to be derived mainly from electronic sources, Granulations-Sillages combines electronic and electroacoustic sounds in a dizzying array of dynamic and rhythmic extremes. Dense clouds of rapid-fire archetypal allusion abound, simulating opening doors, distorted human voices and transcultural string instruments against a space-age backdrop. It’s as if Reibel is intent on exploring and exploding the boundaries Schaeffer had spent so much time and effort erecting.

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18 juin 2012
Par Luc Bouquet in Le son du grisli (France), 18 juin 2012

Texte

««Il ne faut jamais gâcher une seconde dans la musique»»

Le visage fatigué, Willem Breuker ne baisse pas la garde: «Il ne faut jamais gâcher une seconde dans la musique» nous dit-il. Il poursuit: «Je m’endors et me réveille avec la musique». Le voici dans sa gargantuesque discothèque: l’homme est curieux, confesse tout écouter même ce qu’il n’apprécie guère. Car oui, cet homme était musique. On peut regretter qu’il ne dise que très peu de chose sur ses années free (rien sur Machine Gun ou l’ICP ici) ou sur les révoltes et illusions passées.

Le saxophoniste vit pour le présent: les concerts, les répétitions, le négoce, la composition, l’humour pince-sans-rire aussi bien sûr. Le réalisateur Daniel Jouanisson n’a aucun mal à capter l’implication du musicien, son faux détachement et la plus belle conquête de Breuker: la musique. Rien que la musique. Un acte de foi ni plus ni moins.

Un concert du Kollektief (immense solo de violon de Lore Lyne Tritten) ainsi que les interviews de Johann Van Der Keuken, Konrad Boehmer et Misha Mengelberg (le réalisateur comprend-t-il ce qui se passe ici?) complètent cet attachant et nécessaire DVD.

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4 juin 2012
Par Kurt Gottschalk in All About Jazz (ÉU), 4 juin 2012

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«The quartet was lively and precise, and showed once again what a unique group of composers and interpreters there are under the Ambiances Magnétiques banner.»

The other part of Ambiances Magnétiques institutionalization came in the form of a sort of repertory group led by violist Jean René, who released the remarkable solo recording, Fammi (&records) in 2010. With violinist Joshua Zubot, fantastic drummer Pierre Tanguay and bassist Nicolas Caloia, René struck a Stéphane Grappelli bop that could melt and reform in quick minutes and turn to upbeat Quebecois folk the next. The set list was comprised of an Ambiances Magnétiques songbook, with old and new pieces by Derome, Normand Guilbeault and René Lussier, as well as some of René’s own pieces. The quartet was lively and precise, and, along with Ensemble Supermusique, showed once again what a unique group of composers and interpreters there are under the Ambiances Magnétiques banner. (…)

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1 juin 2012
Par Gilles Boisclair in SOCAN, Paroles & Musique (Canada), 1 juin 2012

Coupure de presse

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1 juin 2012
Par Stuart Broomer in The WholeNote #17:9 (Canada), 1 juin 2012

Coupure de presse

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