Imagine two painters working on the same canvas: two visions and two different palettes result in a finished work, with no communication in preparation or during the process. It’s hard to picture a movement built around collaborative improv for visual arts, but what would be the point? The beauty in a painting is the finished work, whereas listening to music as it’s conceived and put to tape can be incomparably more satisfying. Obviously, jazz is a prime example, but experimental/noise music, with its rule-breaking, anything-goes uniqueness, holds extra appeal for many.

Aimé Dontigny and Diane Labrosse are unlikely collaborators given their histories. Dontigny is known for his underground solo work, as well as his releases with free-noise collective Napalm Jazz and electronic duo morceaux_de_machines. Labrosse is possibly more on the establishment tip, having landed commissioned work ranging from theatre, dance and cinema to more recent events sponsored by various Canadian arts councils. Musical background be damned; Dontigny and Labrosse — both improv enthusiasts — gel wonderfully on this rare meeting, recorded live on April 20, 2002.

From the onset of Télépathie’s four tracks, the mood is darkly cinematic and unsettling, with Dontigny and Labrosse delivering succulent sounds plucked and chosen with inventive reasoning — but don’t even bother trying to tell who’s doing what. The underwater experience of t.s.f. is encapsulated in suffocating classical strings, pitched down in shark tank acoustics with the morass of industrial noise and oxygen bubble escapement filling the vacuum. Despite the piece’s near-beatlessness, the duo gets off to an aggressive start, assaulting you with enough sonic imagery that you’ll fear drowning. By the time the droning strains of antenne parabolique introduce themselves, Télépathie has established itself; you will travel down this weightless track — which features a company of wailing, chain-rattling digital banshees and the chatter of hungry android rats building to crescendo — with morbid curiosity and anticipation. photo satellite brings more drones — the first half slathered with a racket wrought of static, and puking turntables (Merzbow would be proud), the second half built around low frequencies, harsh buzzes and percussive noise pinging off the walls like a superball. média tactique holds the disc’s closest moment to rhythmic intent, with crunchy, chopped up beats that sound like all of Autechre’s gear short-circuiting at once. It’s a fitting album closer, offering a peek at a more conventional — and thus more commercial — direction that the duo could follow if they tried.

It would be nice if Dontigny and Labrosse formed a recurring project, but there’s no suggestion that this will happen. Likely, this collaboration is one of a kind — a shame, in a way. One thing is certain: as a duo, they have an intuitive connection that enhances the bone-chilling tunes they’ve recorded for Télépathie.

Encore cet automne, les musiques émergentes retiennent l’attention. La scène indépendante québécoise se démarque et revendique plus que jamais sa différence face à l’industrie dominante. À quoi peut-on s’attendre au cours des prochains mois? Quels seront les artistes ainsi que les albums à surveiller? De l’électronique au rock expérimental, on dresse un portrait des sorties importantes et attendues.

Du côté de DAME, on prévoit neuf titres d’ici la mi-novembre: Speaking In Tongues d’Anandan, Golstein et Wiens, Luminance de Marilyn Lerner, Risque et pendule de l’ensemble Pierre Labbé. Également, des nouvelles sorties pour le duo Langevin-Tanguay, Robert Marcel Lepage, les jeunes musiciens de Sang9, de même que Frank Martel, Tom Walsh, ainsi que Guido del Fabro.

What images form in your mind when you read the word “saxophone”? Denzler and Koch’s sole instrumentation is tenor sax, bass clarinet and soprano sax. What kind of mental picture does that create?

You’re almost certainly wrong.

From the bio:

“Their duo playing reveals, beyond their qualities as instrumentalists, and understanding of how to position themselves, how to decode, and when to communicate — and when not to communicate — instantaneously.”

As with the majority of Ambiances Magnétiques, the remainder of Denzler and Koch’s bio continues in the same fashion, describing an aesthetic instead of offering hints regarding their actual sound. There isn’t really anyone to compare to them with — I think that’s the point.

For lack of a better term, Denzler and Koch work in the realm of jazz improvisation, but unlike many who hang this sign above their groups at Barnes and Noble’s cafe, Denzler and Koch are truly forging new works, never resting in the past or even the present. However, to say that they are simply doing what others aren’t — experimenting for the sense of being different — is an insult to their work.

Though Asymétries steps outside the bounds of what many would call “music”, the artists clearly know what they’re doing — substituting creativity for theory and leaving the Coltrane riffs at the door. Truly, there isn’t a trace of conventional “sax music” to be found here — none of the things for which the instrument is known: melodies, lightning fast runs, blaring brassy energy. Instead, the focus is on texture, color, tone and above all, sound. Asymétries explores breath, breathing, what it sounds like to pucker your lips on the reed of the instrument, to blow kissing sounds into the body, to slowly trill without involving pitch; it explores the difference between moist and dry attacks, what happens when you play the horn at different angles, how many colors of squeaks there are, and so on.

The lack of direction here is interesting. Typically, such “aimlessness” can be a huge problem; it would be so here, if the music actually “began”. That is, the music hovers around the idea of actually starting for… well, its entire length. The album’s delicate minimalism is a bit unnerving the first time around, and you’ll either sit in anticipation for it to “take off” (that’s what a sax is supposed to do, right?) or get up and fast-forward in an attempt to find a spot where the sounds actually progress from the developmental state. However, this is the point: it’s not going to develop, at least in any sort of traditional way, and like a meditative practice, patience is required to endure 37 minutes of otherworldly sounds. Then it leaves you as subtly as it began — no bang, no warning.

Again, the adventurous nature of this work makes it difficult terrain for most, but those who choose to really listen, and give time to understanding these works, will be rewarded with a truly sublime experience.

Denzler (tenor sax) and Koch (bass clarinet, soprano sax) blow their way through four pieces all entitled Asymetries. Both are exponents of the Swiss impro scene. Denzler is a player from Geneva (Switzerland). His cooperations are to numerous to mention them all. All in the field of improvised music. He is for instance member of Hubbub an improvisational collective. Koch is known for his work with celloplayer Martin Schutz. Denzler and Koch met in 1996 at one of Butch Morris ‘Conductions’ workshops. Since 1999 they established themselves as a duo. With this cd they make their debute on cd. It’s instantly clear that both players are not satisfied with the conventional playing of these instruments. They use different kinds of technique in order explore and expand the spectrum of sounds that can come from these instruments. They do not use electronics, all is done by mouth and fingers. All this done not just for the sake of discovering more technical possibilities, or to add some more pages to the catalogue of sounds. They are means in a musical process that aims at communication. Denzler and Koch give room to each other, letting the other act or react. The result is a set of well balanced duets. The CD starts with very soft sounds. Short lines and figures come from and disappear into silence. Overall the music is contemplative, concentrated and controlled. It switches from soft and subtile to jerky and growling. For some reason I compare their music with Schwitters’ Ursonate. Something completely different, be sure of that. But on the other hand both could be described as examples of soundpoetry that stay close to breath.

Les Poules is made up of 3 Canadian musicians who have managed a quirky and moody CD of controlled improv that avoids self-indulgence as it creates emotional landscapes composed of a sack full of highly varied sounds. Nice.

Two more releases on No Type, the label with some slight connections to empreintes DIGITALes. Upon until now most of the releases were rhythm based, the one by A_dontigny and Diane Labrosse is more along the lines of improvised, electronic music — dare I say, more along the lines of labels like Grob and Erstwhile? Of course, in matters like this, this is a live recording, of a year ago in the neat place of La Casa Del Popolo. It’s hard to guess what goes into the computer and sampler, source-wise I mean, but it’s all closely linked together. A broading atmosphere, sizzing drones open up here and only half way the more typical laptop sounds come alive, those that sound like tweaking sounds through max/msp programs. The two stay together throughout the entire disc, finding sounds that are alike, but each works on their own level. They work with a sound palette that is quite supplementary to each other. In the final track média tactique, they even offer a very slow dub piece that drowns in the use of the extra sounds. It’s good, sturdy improvised electronic music, with not much news under the sun, alas.