Fünf (German for five) is an all-female twelve-handed collective: Magali Babin, Andrea-Jane Cornell, Martine H Crispo, Anne-François Jacques, Émilie Mouchous, and Erin Sexton, all based in Montreal. They all experiment with electricity and home-made or modified devices. This is the realm of circuit-bending, miniature sound sculptures, automatons, and the art of getting contact microphones to sing.
The music is a form of microsonic free improvisation where silence, without being king, has its role to play. Rubbing sounds, scratching sounds, murmurs, slight movements, parasites, controlled feedback, field recordings — all these sounds are small, fragile, and measured. They tell a wide range of stories, some intriguing, some ridiculous, some are even moving, and not a single one is predictable.
La règle (French for either “the rule” or “the ruler”) features twelve pieces ranging from a few seconds to close to nine minutes recorded between 2011 and 2014 in various groupings though never as a full sextet. I knew the work of three of the collective’s six musicians prior to this CD: Sexton, who plays with light and electrical interferences; Babin, whose Chemin de fer (No Type, 2002) remains a very fine listen; and Jacques, the lady with the little automatons, who has a nice duo CD with Tim Olive. Sadly (and that will be my sole criticism), there is no information on the jacket about who plays what and where, which means that I cannot really say that I have been acquainted with the other three members.
Though, come to think about it, this might no be so sad after all. By hiding their parts, the collective are focusing our attention on the whole. And that whole boasts a unity of spirit that charmed me from listen number 1. Who’s responsible for this or that aural find? Fünf, who integrate it to Fünf’s other finds. The mix plays with a very large stereo spectrum where each sound is carefully (dis) placed, to a choreographic level. I recommended listening to La règle on headphones, in order to not miss this level of detail.
My personal highlights are Retenue mystique, the album’s longest track, because its title (“Mystical Restraint”) describes it perfectly and I felt like I was in a space opera, right at the moment of calm before the storm. I am also fond of the subtle yet twisted humour in Aimes-tu ma porte?, and of Morceau de Fünf, where the collective is almost reinventing Luc Ferrari’s concept of presque rien (almost nothing).
