E’ ciò che emerge dalla poetica evidentemente disturbata e “dadaista” (per non dire parafisica) di Mankind (Ice Machine), vale a dire un incredibile duo femminile che sa muoversi con estrema disinvoltura tra “sospiri ritmici post-wyattiani” (Mile End Throat Singers), elettronica schizzata (Todo que tengo) e psyco-minimalismo à la Comelade (The Anti-Rules).

Ignaz Schick e Martin Tétreault (Live • 33 • 45 • 78) si presenta in un contesto ancora più radicale: quattordici tracce di radicalismo estremo dove i due musicisti si dividono non solo i canali (quello di sinistra Ignaz, a destra Martin) ma anche i marchingegni elettronici.

Nous Perçons Les Oreilles (cioè Jean Derome e Joane Hétu) con Shaman ne rappresentano — invece — il contraltare acustico attraverso dodici tracce inesorabilmente segnate dal trionfo del fiatismo improvvisativo (sax, flauti e oggetti vari e la voce stessa).

Dal canto loro Marilyn Lerner, Matt Brubeck e Nick Fraser con Ugly Beauties, pur continuando a muoversi nel campo della free-improvvisation, ci propongono patterns più delineati soprattutto con il “lirismo slabbrato” di Oubliette che, grazie all’ottimo violoncello di Matt si spinge nei pressi di certo camerismo contemporane, così come nell’intensa Figure lisse dove l’interplay “piano/violoncello” sostenuto dalla soffusa batteria di Fraser è davvero notevole.

Duo playing is probably the most difficult kind of improvising. Not only must each player depend on only one other to modify or accompany his ideas, but unbridled creativity has to be muted to fit the other musician’s comfort zone. As these CDs demonstrate, skilled improvisers aren’t fazed by the challenge; but the instruments they choose are sometimes unusual. […]

Glen Hall has organized the annual 416 Toronto Creative Improvisers Festival since 2001. Guests from the 514 area code were welcomed last year, with Montréal turntablist Martin Tétreault’s sounds most unique. Live • 33 • 45 • 78 (Ambiances Magnétiques AM 191 CD), a duo with Berlin-based turntablist Ignaz Schick, provides examples of these jangling and ratcheting textures. Unlike hip-hoppers who use LPs to insert song snatches or scratch beats, the Canadian-German duo manipulate tone-arms and cartridges as additional sound sources, while pummelling electrified surfaces for distinctive timbres. In two suites they mix granulated rubs and rattles, sharp rugged smacks and motorized rasps with beneath-hearing-level clatter and hisses to reveal textures ranging from stallion-like whinnies to forte ostinatos replicating a dentist’s drill. By the climax of Cave 12 they create a double-counterpoint showcase. The piece weaves vinyl needle rips, frenzied buzzes, static vibrating, video-game-like clanking and near-human cries into a neat package of harmonic interface, as multi-textural as it is percussive.

Ah! Je suis sûrement le 93^e chroniqueur culturel à faire ce jeu de mots facile-là en parlant de Martin Tétreault. Mais cette fois, qu’arrive-t-il si j’ajoute son équivalent berlinois, Ignaz Schick? Une mauvaise justification. Bien que l’album livre la marchandise (encore plus si écouté dans une pièce avec de très bons hauts-parleurs placés aux antipodes de la pièce en question), la médiocrité des calembours faisant office de titres d’articles d’objets culturels est en hausse depuis quelques années. La cause? L’homogénéisation d’un modèle paresseux propagé par les disciples du Voir et son étrange progéniture. Je vous entends déjà: «Mais en utilisant ce titre, n’êtes vous pas en train de participer à la continuité de cette tendance?» À cela, je vous répondrai: «Bien sûr, je suis un autre adepte de ce nihilisme montréalais de fond-de-cour».

Recorded in Europe in 2006, and finally out on Ambiances Magnétiques, this is the first (?) collaboration between two turntablists, Montréaler Martin Tétreault and Berliner Ignaz Schick (of Perlonex, who will be performing with Charlemagne Palestine at FIMAV 2010). Sixty minutes of textural improvisations on turntables, objects, and surfaces. Each participant is tucked in his own stereo channel, which makes it easier to identify their similarities and distinctive traits. And for those wondering, Live 33 • 45 • 78 is just as noise-based but a lot less noisy than Tétreault’s recent collaborations with Otomo Yoshihide. Abstract, demanding music, but it carries just fine. Note that Schick will be in Montréal in March.

Translated from French.

It’s rather amusing, at this early date, to already be able to talk about “old-school” vinyl-less turntablism, but that’s pretty much the case here. Tétreault is one of the acknowledged masters of this approach, having pioneered it along with (and often in the company of) Otomo Yoshihide, but his approach was usually activist in nature, unleashing a flurry of scratches, groans, ticks and many other sounds within a conception that owed more to free improvisation from an avant jazz stance than post-AMM electro-acoustic improvisation.

Here, he’s joined by Ignaz Schick, a younger collaborator perhaps best known for his involvement with the improvising ensembles Perlon and Perlonex. The music is presented in two series of seven tracks each. The first (titled, 1-p45 un through 7-p45 sept) is the rougher of the pair, the sounds tending toward the rudely percussive and raspy. While the dynamics and textures range widely, the activity is fairly incessant like a hive of mechanical insects scurrying about their daily tasks. The tone is hard and bleak but no less effective for that, the tendency for elements to possess a repetitive quality reinforcing the gray, industrial aspect although later in the sequence, bell-like tones are heard offering a glimmer of light. The second set of cuts, while by no means rosy, is somewhat more tonal in nature, with ringing metal of various kinds playing a larger role (again, in the later portions). There’s also less of a claustrophobic feel, more of a spatial expanse and a greater amount of “air” around the sounds. One has the impression that there’s more listening occurring between Schick and Tetreault than in the earlier suite. This makes for a slightly more satisfying set, though both have their strong points.

So, it’s “old-school” vis a vis its structure and “busyness” as compared to many more reductionist practitioners but it retains much of the power and brutality that made many of ours ears perk up a decade or so ago.

Three new releases from Ambiances Magnétiques, all of them with a German connection. We met guitarist Rainer Wiens, from Germany but now living in Montréal, earlier on trio recordings with Malcom Goldstein and John Heward, and another one with Ganesh Anandan and Malcolm Goldstein. Shadow of Forgotten Ancestors is in fact his first solo album where we learn more about Wiens as a composer, and as a player of the kalimba. Over the years Wiens composed several pieces that we now find on this CD. The title track of this CD, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, as well as title The Taste Pomegranate indicate that filmmaker Sergei Paradjanov was a special source for inspiration for Wiens. The CD opens with The Valley of Green Ghosts with Wiens solo on kalimba, creating inevitably an african climate. Most pieces however are duets that have not Wiens, but Jean Derome (flute), Malcolm Goldstein (violin), Frank Lozano (saxophone), Jean René (viola) and Joshua Zubot (violin) as performers. In the title track flute and violin play — almost and almost continuously — uni sono. Shh… Whisper to the Wind is a delicate between violin and breathing sounds. Bird of Jade with Derome on flute, and If a Bird sings in the Forest (sax), as well as other pieces seem to be inspired on the whistling of birds. All pieces are mature and thoughtfully composed moving between traditional (african) musical forms and new composed music. And all players play very inspired and dedicated. The result is a very strong and convincing album, where everything is on its place.

The cover of Self Made has a nice photo of Hans Reichel and Ganesh Anandan portrayed as two proud ‘self made’ men. Even more the title refers to both artists as designers and builders of their instruments. Hans Reichel, guitarist from origin, is known for his daxophone. Anandan built the shruti stick and a metallophone. The ‘daxophone’ is a single wooden blade fixed in a block containing a contact microphone, which is played mostly with a bow. Reichel draws many colourful sounds from this instrument — sometimes sounding like birdcalls, animal sounds, flutes, human voice and breath, etc. Very impressive and absolutely an amazing instrument. The shruti stick is a 12-string cither. Anandan presented it on another duo-cd, Shruti Project, which he worked with John Gzowski who played self-designed micro_tonal guitars. For Self Made Reichel and Anandan concentrate on creating sounds and textures. Structure is not their main interest. Although Anandan often lays down complex rhythmic patterns, and Reichel plays his solos over it, it is not always clear where they want to go. They create nice atmospheres, and specially the daxophone sounds very direct and very near to the human (language of) body and voice. Several of their improvisations are very worthwhile like Drunkeness. It is very subtile, virtuoso and soulful. Others however don’t bring me anywhere. The playing of Anandan I enjoyed most in the solo piece In the Stillness that develops like an indonesian gamelan-like piece of music. Pure beauty! For this and other qualities these improvisations deserve your attention.

Live • 33 • 45 • 78 by Berlin-based Ignaz Schick and Martin Tétreault is the most far out of these three CDs. Two avant garde turntable-masters who collaborate since 2004. “Our music is made with raw materials that have nothing to do with the passive uses of the turntable. We quickly and sharply use our set of home-made sonic tools to produce dialogues of varying speed, volume level, and duration. Recorded live, our music offers lively exchanges where tone arms are playing a sonic sport! These exchanges will get you ears moving…” Within the parameters of their musical games they make truly fascinating music using concrete sounds only. Records are abandoned, instead they use various objects and manipulations to produce their micro soundworld. The CD contains two series of seven pieces listening to poetic names like 1-p45 un and cave12part1.The music itself has more effect on my phantasy. It sounds like the recording of some never-heard-of primitive life-form deep down in the ocean or earth.

Live • 33 • 45 • 78 is a collaboration of two beyond-deconstructionist turntablists: the Canadian Martin Tétreault and the German Ignaz Schick. They’re well past the idioms marked by the ‘broken music’ approach or Christian Marclay — their sound comes from the machine itself, removed from vinyl + needle friction. Schick is the younger of the two, but has honed an improvisational approach with Charlemagne Palestine and Don Cherry, while Tétreault has played and recorded with, as well as influenced many in the field of modern creative or improvised music such as Otomo Yoshihide and Jean Derome. Here, a pair of 2006 live performances from Belgium and Switzerland document the duo seizing from their machines sounds which are then forced to move in three tempos — quick, quicker, quickest. The disc gurgles, buzzes, and oozes across the aural spectrum.

Ignaz Schick is a Berlin-based musician who runs the Zangi label and is a member of the International Turntable Orchestra, along with Martin Tétreault, Philip Jeck & Dieb 13. Mr. Tétreault has been playing turntables with & without records for many years and can be heard on more than 25 discs. Tétreault was one of the first turntablists to abandon records and just play & manipulate the turntable itself. Besides being a strong improviser, Mr. Tétreault is a concept man as many of his discs can attest to. Sometimes his concepts are successful and sometimes not so. This disc appears to be a live duo with two master turntable manipulators. It often sounds as if there are few if any records involved. What we hear are clicks, static, rubbed styles and assorted turntable and tone-arm manipulations. Ping pong balls? balloons? What exactly is going on? Only these turntablists know for sure. The results are more diverse and often fascinating than one might imagine. Much of this is similar to electronic music but more stark. Each sound seems to works and fits well into in its own place. Like listening to a bunch of machines whizzing and whirring by the themselves, yet there is a concept or direction. Pretty engaging, nonetheless.