The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, right? Wrong — at least when it comes to electroacoustics, the beautiful province of Quebec compares very well to any other region of the world. Call me chauvinistic, I don’t care: Quebec is home to several composers of tremendous talent and influential professors.

My goal is not to turn this article in an analytical essay, but, as a music reviewer and unstoppable listener, I am convinced that there is such a thing as Québécois electroacoustics. Despite the stylistic variety among our composers, I detect a Québécois “sound,” something that sounds to me neither British nor French or German; something that calls to me and speaks to me in a language more immediate and easier to understand.

This “unity in diversity” is probably, at least in part, due to the lasting influence of a small number of key composers whose academic teachings have shaped our younger generations. I am thinking first and foremost of Francis Dhomont and Yves Daoust. So let’s begin this sound path with a Frenchman so Québécois at heart that he was awarded a prestigious Career Grant from the Conseil des arts et lettres du Québec. I can sincerely recommend all of Dhomont’s albums: his graceful writing, his narrative flair and his intelligence turn any of his works into fascinating gems. I have often publicly expressed my admiration for Forêt profonde (including in my first Sound Path, so I will skip it this time), but Sous le regard d’un soleil noir, his first large-scale work, remains an international classic of electroacoustic music, and his more recent Cycle du son shows how close to perfection his art has grown — the piece AvatArsSon in particular, my first pick for this Sound Path.

If Dhomont’s music is often constructed following large theoretical, literary and sociological themes, Yves Daoust’s works lean more toward poetry and the anecdote. Most of his pieces betray his respect for the abstractionist ideals of the French school, but his seemingly naive themes (water, crowds, a Chopin Fantasia or a childhood memory) empower his music with an unusual force of evocation. His latest album, Bruits, also displays a willingness to grow and learn. One is tempted to hear the influence of his more electronica-savvy students in the startling title triptych.

To those two pillars of Quebec electroacoustics, I must add the names of Robert Normandeau and Gilles Gobeil. Normandeau is a very good example of what I consider to be the “typical” Québécois sound: a certain conservatism in the plasticity of sounds (the result of the combined influence of the British and French schools); great originality in their use; and an uncanny intelligence in the discourse which, even though it soars into academic thought, doesn’t rob the listener of his or her pleasure. My favorite album remains Figures, in part because of the beautiful piece Le Renard et la Rose, inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s novel Le Petit Prince – and also because of Venture, a tribute to the Golden Age of progressive rock (a pet peeve I share with the composer, might I add). As for Gobeil’s music, it is the wildness of wilderness, the turmoil of human passions, the sudden gestures, the copious splashes of sonic matter thrown all around. If La mécanique des ruptures remains an essential listen, his most recent album Le contrat, a collaboration with guitarist René Lussier, stands as his most accomplished (and thrilling!) work to date.

These four composers may represent the crème de la crème of academic circles, but empreintes DIGITALes’ catalog counts numerous young composers and artists whose work deeply renew the vocabulary of their older colleagues.

I would like to mention Fractures, the just released debut album by Christian Bouchard. His fragmented approach seems to draw as much from academic electroacoustics as from experimental electronica. Thanks to some feverish editing and dizzying fragmentation, Parcelles 1 and Parcelles 2 evoke avant-garde digital video art. I also heartily recommend Louis Dufort’s album Connexions, which blends academic and noise approaches. His stunning piece Zénith features treatments of samples of Luc Lemay’s voice (singer with the death-metal group Gorguts). I am also quite fond of Marc Tremblay’s rather coarse sense of humor. On his CD Bruit-graffiti he often relies on pop culture (from The Beatles to children’s TV shows). His piece Cowboy Fiction, a “western for the ear” attempting to reshape the American dream, brings this Sound Path to a quirky end.

Serious or facetious, abstract or evocative, Québécois electroacoustic music has earned a place in the hearts of avant-garde music lovers everywhere. Now it is your turn to explore its many paths.

Translated from French.

Electroacoustic music is an acquired taste. Like it or not, radio and television have conditioned us from an early age into accepting some musical (tonal and rhythmical) molds as being “normal.” Therefore, electroacoustics, along with other sound-based (in opposition to note-based) forms of musical expression like free improvisation, is perceived as being “abnormal.” That’s why a first exposure to this kind of music often turns into a memorable experience — for better or worse. Many factors come into play, but choosing an album that offers an adequate (i.e. friendly and gentle) introduction to the genre will greatly help in letting the initial esthetic shock turn into an experience of Beauty and mark the beginning of a new adventure in sound.

My goal with this sound path is simply to point out a few titles that I think have the potential to encourage instead of discourage, titles opening a door to a new musical dimension. Of course, this selection can only be subjective. But it might be helpful to new enthusiasts and to aficionados looking for gift ideas that would spread good music around. After all, Christmas is only a few weeks away!

Bridges

We usually develop new interests from existing interests. What I mean is: we explore music genres that are new to us because a related interest brought us there. That’s why when it comes to electroacoustic music, mixed works (for tape and instrument) or works related to specific topics are often the best place to find a bridge that will gently lead the listener into the new territory. For example, people who enjoy reading travel literature will find in Kristoff K.Roll’s Corazón Road the sublimated narrative of a journey through Central America. Those still young enough to enjoy fairy tales (I’m one of them) will find in Francis Dhomont’s Forêt profonde an in-depth reflection on this literary genre as inspired by the works of psychoanalyst Bruno Bettelheim, in the form of a captivating work with multiple narratives (in many languages) and electroacoustic music of a great evocative strength. Lighter and more fanciful, Libellune by Roxanne Turcotte finds its source in childlike imagination and is in part aimed at children without over-simplifying its artistic process.

Guitar fans can turn to Parr(A)cousmatique, a wonderful project for which classical guitarist Arturo Parra co-wrote pieces with some of Quebec’s best electroacoustic composers: Stéphane Roy, Francis Dhomont (Quebecer at heart, at the very least), Robert Normandeau, and Gilles Gobeil. The latter has just released an album-long piece, Le contrat, written with and featuring avant-garde guitarist René Lussier. Lussier’s followers and people interested in Goethe’s play Faust (and its rich heritage) will find here an essential point of convergence, another bridge.

Essential listens

Those who want to explore further will probably want to venture into more abstract electroacoustic art. I recommend starting with the Quebec composers. Chauvinism? No way. It’s just that the music of composers like Dhomont, Normandeau, Gobeil, Yves Daoust, or Yves Beaupré seems to me to be more accessible than the music of British or French composers. It is more immediate, has a stronger impact (Gobeil, usually hitting hard), a more pleasant form of lyricism (Daoust, Beaupré), more welcoming architectures and themes (Dhomont, Normandeau). If you need places to start, try Normandeau’s Figures, Gobeil’s La mécanique des ruptures, Dhomont’s Cycle du son, and Beaupré’s Humeur de facteur.

That being said, there are hours upon hours of beauty and fascination to be found in the works of Michel Chion (his powerful Requiem), Bernard Parmegiani (La création du monde), Jonty Harrsison (Articles indéfinis), Denis Smalley (Sources/Scènes), and Natasha Barrett (Isostasie), but they may seem more difficult or thankless on first listen. And for those interested in where these music come from, the EMF label offers L’œuvre musicale, the complete works of Pierre Schaeffer, the father of musique concrète and grandfather of electroacoustics.

Tiny ideas

A compilation album has the advantage of offering a large selection of artists and esthetics in a small, affordable format. Available at a budget price, eXcitations proposes a strong sampler of the productions on the label empreintes DIGITALes. The albums Electro clips and Miniatures concrètes, along with the brand new volume of the DISContact! series, cull short pieces (often under three minutes) to trigger interrogations and discoveries in those with a short attention span.

And finally, for those of you who want to take their time and explore in short steps, the [cinemapourloreille] collection produced by the French label Métamkine contains many wonderful 3” CDs, 20 minutes in duration each, for a reduced price. The catalog includes titles by renown composers such as Michel Chion, Lionel Marchetti, Michèle Bokanowski, Bernhard Günter, and Éliane Radigue. These tiny albums are perfect for gift exchanges.

Of course, all of the above are only recommendations. The best sound path to discovery is the one you follow by yourself, little by little.

Best listens!

Translated from French.

Rien à voir (nothing to see) is not true. When Robert Normandeau sets up tomorrow night at the Robert Gill Theatre, the stage will in fact be filled with something — a load of sound-amplifying speakers. Anything else, like real people or just a simple music stand, might get in the way of the musical sounds. And that’s one thing that won’t happen at a Normandeau concert of electronic music. Here the sound is a spectacle even if it has nothing to show (perhaps a word should be coined for this sound-only show, something like an “auracle.” There have been those over the years who have urged the 46-year old composer to add a visual element. “But we resist,” he replies. “It’s called Rien à voir to make clear to everyone this is not a show.” This can be a problem for some people. So can the sounds Normandeau creates — abstract, tuneless rhythm-free whooshes and swooshes, and electronica that goes ping in the dark. Tomorrow night, he is joined by two other practitioners of this art in the dark: his mentor, Francis Dhomont and a younger colleague, Louis Dufort. “At this concert, there really is nothing to look at,” Normandeau says. “There is nothing of interest to sit in front of. The performance itself is minimal. It is often presented in the dark.” Does this sound like a lot of fun? Well, it can be, he goes on. “In this way, the audience becomes an audience,” he says. What happens is probably the most musical experience in anyone’s life. Electroacoustic music was Normandeau’s turf well before he got his degree in musical composition from Université Laval in Québec City in 1984. Back in the early ’80s, it looked like the place to be. It looked like it might be the future of serious music, taking it to the next level. It even had a base in popular culture. All those techno-Brit bands were making electro-sounds so fashionable in hip magazines like The Face. Even Paul McCartney talked about Stockhausen, electronic music’s Big Cheese. So much for yesterday. Instead of replacing symphonic classical music, electronic music became its frighteningly eccentric second cousin. Since then, we’ve had no choice but to love it on its own terms. “Electroacoustic music should not be compared to anything else,” says Normandeau. “The major innovation in it is that the composer does everything in the studio. He doesn’t have to care about the reality of the stage or the realism of his gestures. He doesn’t have to think about someone else reading his score.” “I think being this kind of composer is a lot closer to being a writer or sculptor. We work like sculptors; we sculpt sound and space. We have to adjust our performance to the acoustics of the hall. Basically the music is written in the studio, but we have to fine-tune it for the performance.” “But even with this kind of taped music, I don’t think a live performance can be replaced. The live performance is important for human beings. It is a ritual. Going to a place and spending time with other people is something we need in our lives. “In the past, when we thought about electronic music as being the extension of the instrumental musical world, it didn’t work out very well because the electronic instruments are pretty primitive compared to regular instruments. The quality of sound you have when you play a violin or piano comes from centuries of research. In fact, we haven’t invented a new instrument in over a century. The last one was a saxophone.” Yes, but there is the computer, he admits. This is good news for composers and bad news. The bad news is that, “when you are working with a computer, you lose contact with the music. You watch what you are doing. You lose contact with the sound. Yet because with computers so many people are working at home, music can become very personal and very intimate.”

Première chose qui saute à l’oreille après le concert de jeudi soir: il y a bel et bien une «école de Montréal» en électroacoustique. Toutes les œuvres entendues au programme participent d’une même approche, celle lancée par Pierre Schaeffer. Cela consiste en le fait qu’il a fallu, pour le nouvel art qu’était la musique faite de sons enregistrés, manipulés ou électroniquement générés, définir un vocabulaire, inventer un solfège et composer un répertoire de sons et de manipulations sonores. Ce dernier point est malheureusement trop souvent confondu avec la composition elle-même, ce qui rend l’art alors un certain art acousmatique stérile.

Le programme s’ouvrait et se fermait avec deux extraits de Francis Dhomont. On ainsi voulu rendre un hommage à celui qui est de plus en plus reconnu comme le «fondateur» de cette école. À l’heure où il œuvrait à la Faculté de musique de l’Université de Montréal, quand on parlait de musique électroacoustique, le membre artistique de l’équation primait sur le technique.

Non seulement la musique de Dhomont reste-t-elle encore belle et jeune, mais diffusée ainsi en salle — Robert Normandeau!, sublime poète de la console! — sa dimension réelle éblouit avec autant de force que de sensualité, d’intelligence que d’inspiration. Peu importe le média, la grande musique, c’est cela. Mémoires vives, du ci-nommé Normandeau, est une pièce un peu rhétorique (je maintiens mon jugement antérieur), mais qui passe mieux en salle qu’au disque — comme tout le reste du programme d’ailleurs; après tout, on n’a chez soi que deux haut-parleurs plutôt que l’armada ici sollicitée et l’espace utilisé. Dommage pourtant que le climat fût brouillé par un impair technique, équivalent du trou de mémoire au concert «habituel» et qui a toutefois démontré que, oui, quelque part, ces machines à musique restaient humaines.

Le plus beau moment, là où vraiment on a senti une succession au maître fondateur, reste les Paysages intérieurs, de Stéphane Roy. Non seulement la «bande» est splendide, mais Normandeau s’est hissé à des sommets d’inspiration interprétative pour la rendre exceptionnellement sensible. On est pris par cette mouvance qui s’ouvre et qui nous ouvre, qui tourne qui appelle, parfois répond, et qui nous dit… que si on fait cette musique, c’est qu’elle doit être faite ainsi car le message ne saurait être livré autrement. […]

On compte trois compositeurs canadiens parmi les gagnants du 3^e Concours international Noroit de composition acousmatique, qui a eu lieu en mars dernier à Arras, France. Le montréalais Stéphane Roy s’est vu décerner le premier Prix du jury, d’une valeur de 3000$, pour Crystal Music, commandée par l’ACREQ (Association pour la création et la recherche électroacoustiques du Québec) avec le concours du Conseil des arts du Canada. Cette œuvre a été composée au Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustic de l’Université Stanford, Californie, et complétée à la Faculté de musique de l’Universilé de Montréal. Paul Dolden de Vancouver, a reçu le deuxième prix pour L’ivresse de la vitesse, alors que le Prix du public est allé à Robert Normandeau, de Montréal, pour sa pièce Spleen (il avait reçu le premier Prix du jury et du Prix du public en 1991). Des 73 œuvres soumises provenant de 17 pays, le jury en a sélectionné six de l’Angleterre, du Brésil, des États-Unis et du Canada. Celles-ci seront publiées sur CD au cours de l’année 1994.