À l’inattendu les dieux livrent passage
Mecha Fixes Clocks / Michel F Côté
Michel F Côté uses a variety of sonic strategies to construct an exuberantly original nine-part sound world on à l’inattendu les dieux livrent passage. — The WholeNote, Canada
Perfectly restrained, non-idiomatic music, really best heard on a moonlit night… — The Cookshop, USA
Open passages stay open.
Let’s take advantage of this passage to thank the musicians, especially those who tune to the unexpected.
Thanks to them for their ability to abandon themselves to time and to obscure instructions.
Mecha Fixes Clocks is a repair shop, not unlike a garage.
Only we don’t repair all engines nor all models: the task would be insurmountable. These mechanic-musicians do their best: the century having begun badly, they make adjustments without knowing if they’ll suffice.
Actually, it’s not the job of composers nor musicians to save centuries.
In concert, Mecha Fixes Clocks takes the form of a sextet. On this recording, their number is nearly twice as many, like a bonus, a promotional offer.
This music on this disc is rather slow and not very fashionable, though it has been retrofitted.
- Composer(s): Michel F Côté, Diane Labrosse, Pierre-Yves Martel, Jean Derome, Max Steiner, Jean René
- Performer(s): Mecha Fixes Clocks, Michel F Côté, Gordon M Allen, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Jean Derome, Bernard Falaise, Lori Freedman, Tiari Kese, Diane Labrosse, Jean-Denis Levasseur, Pierre-Yves Martel, Jean René, Magali Stoll, Martin Tétreault, Tom Walsh
- Graphic design: Fabrizio Gilardino
CD (ET 09)
- 1
- 2tenue ronde sous cieux (Michel F Côté), 6:49
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9
- Label: &records
- ET 09
- 2010
- Total duration: 47:02
- 130 mm × 130 mm × 3 mm
- 30 g
On the web
Some recommended items
In the press
Review
Atmospheric and ambient, but also audacious, Montréal percussionist/keyboardist and electronic manipulator Michel F Côté uses a variety of sonic strategies to construct an exuberantly original nine-part sound world on à l’inattendu les dieux livrent passage. Accomplished in transforming directors’ and choreographers’ ideas into sound, as well as leading ad hoc bands such as this one, which generate a new meaning from his initials, the composer/arranger pushes and pulls the textures in a multi-stylistic fashion so that seemingly bland surfaces turn out to contain tough, multi-faceted cores.
Case in points is a track like ferveur fossile, where chunks and clicks from signal-processed timbres splutter and shrill while commenting upon Gordon Allen’s irregularly vibrated trumpet lines and the twangs from Bernard Falaise’s guitar. Arco string runs maintain the theme, although variants become looser, more strident and discordant as they come in contact with the buzzing electronics. Other pieces offer interludes of pseudo classicism via Pierre-Yves Martel’s viole de gambe or Jean Derome’s harmonized bass flute, only to have them sabotaged by Lori Freedman’s harsh bass clarinet slurs or abrasive wood scrapes from the percussionist. Overall it seems that sonic disruption is as much a part of Côté’s compositions as legato continuum.
This post-modern strategy is sardonically confirmed on au-delà de l’espace des petits oiseasux and more obviously on the concluding entre idéal et mental. On that track, string-laden samples, likely sourced by turntablist Martin Tétreault from Gone with the Wind composer Max Steiner LPs, are interrupted by plinking from live string players, motor-driven whines and clanks plus the percussionist’s cross pulses and opposite-sticking beats.
Review
Second album from this Canadian superposse led by Michel F Côté (notice the initials). Heard some things in the debut that were pretty nice but this raises the bar, allowing for a greater level of participation from the players/performers themselves. So who joins Côté at the helms? We’re told it’s Jean René, Diane Labrosse, Jean Derome, and Pierre-Yves Martel, all of whom were previously involved with Ambiances Magnétiques in one way or another; but in listening to the album, these fellers could’ve been around forever, and from anywhere. Perfectly restrained, non-idiomatic music, really best heard on a moonlit night…
Chroniques

Michel F Côté remet le couvert avec son MECHA FIXES CLOCKS, deux ans après “Orbiting with screwdrivers”. Dans le mesure où le propos sonore est assez proche de son prédécesseur, l’auditeur peut supposer que “À l’inattendu les dieux livrent passage” a été réalisé avec la même mise en œuvre: se servir de divers enregistrements proposés par les musiciens de la scène montréalaise des musiques actuelles, mais pas nécessairement les mêmes (ici Jean Derome, Martin Tétreault, Bernard Falaise, Freedman, Diane Labrosse, Isaiah Ceccarelli et d’autres) à la trompette, guitare, harpe, clarinette, viole de gambe, flûtes… et même au couteau (!), etc., en les intégrant (un peu à la manière de John Wall par exemple) dans une construction sonore pour laquelle lui-même use de claviers, d’électroniques, de percussions, de microphones. Pour en varier l’approche, il s’associe toutefois, selon les pièces pour leur réalisation finale, à certains de ses partenaires. La trame prend la forme d’une musique improvisée ambiante, parfois presque proche d’une curieuse mais complexe (dans le détail des sonorités) musique d’entertainment aérienne et méditative.
Recensione
Musica che parla per immagini, giustamente definita altrove “cinematica” per il suo srotolarsi come un lento tappeto di immagini formalizzate in sequenze di suoni. La bulimia di immagini prodotta nelle nostre menti non necessita di ulteriori materiali di stimolo, le scorte sono in avanzo, basta qualche semplice ripescaggio. Nuova psichedelica? Potrebbe essere un cammino da percorrere. Niente effetti speciali, né droga, ma solamente le tossine cinematiche che ci portiamo dentro da anni. Chi la considera ambient sbaglia, poiché Mecha Fixes Clocks di Michel F Côté, sebbene utilizzi grammatiche molto simili alla musica di riempimento paesaggistico, lavora la materia in un cesello molto più minuzioso, specie nell’aggregare rimandi e disturbi. Si riescono così a produrre nella memoria di chi ascolta ripescaggi aleatori e assolutamente non vincolanti. Glissando wyattiani, fratture glitch, crepuscolarismi hollywoodiani e folklori senza patria. Quello di Côté, al pari di lavori come quelli nei Klaxon Gueule, appartiene più all’arte del montaggio e della decostruzione, piuttosto che alla creazione di per sé, sebbene poi, alla luce di quanto appena scritto, le due cose tendano inevitabilmente a sovrapporsi.
Altrisuoni

Kritik
Mecha Fixes Clocks, Mfc, Michel F Côté. Er ist der Fixstern, aber ungern allein. Bei Konzerten arbeiten in der Uhrmacherwerkstatt 6 Leute, À l’inattendu les dieux livrent passage (&09) ist ein Stelldichein von mehr als einem Dutzend namhafter Montréal-Aktivisten, die dafür sorgen, dass MFCs Phantasien sich in Klang verwandeln. Nicht ganz so mikrotonal wie Zeitkratzer, entfalten die 9 Stücke etwas Hauntologisches, melancholisch, schönheitstrunken, träumerisch. Meist auch transparent genug, dass man die schönsten Traumgespinste gut hört — die Trompete von Gordon Allen, die zarte Gitarre von Bernard Falaise, die Klarinette von Lori Freedman, das Piano von Diane Labrosse, die Viola von Jean René. Besonders nostalgisch klingen die beiden Stücke, bei denen sich MFC in das Pathos der Filmmusik von Max Steiner hüllt. Der Schwebklang dieser Dreamscapes ist durchsetzt mit elektronischen und perkussiven Verzierungen durch Martin Tétreault, Isaiah Ceccarelli und Côté selbst. Lang ausgehaltener Bläserklang tönt die Luft, manchmal scheint die Musik wie durch einen Vorhang gedämpft oder durch Zwielicht gefiltert. Zuletzt begeigt noch einmal Steiner, elegisch und zärtlich, die Herzfasern — Gefühl in Zelluloid konserviert. MFC, seelenbrüderlich eng mit The Caretaker verwandt, ist eine Traumfabrik im Kleinen. Aber dabei so ehrlich, etwas Unheimlichea am Schönen und Traumhaften hörbar zu machen.
À l’inattendu… chez &records
Musicien éclectique, Michel F Côté codirige l’étiquette &records avec Fabrizio Gilardino — qui signe le design des pochettes sérigraphiées. & est une étiquette bien de son temps, post-crise du disque. La présentation mince — sans tranche — et soignée des disques nous dit d’emblée que l’objet n’est pas destiné à la vente au détail dans des étagères identifiées à tel ou tel style. Il s’adresse plutôt au mélomane, collectionneur, converti à l’achat en ligne — sans intermédiaire — ou mieux, fureteur de concerts. Les projets défendus par l’étiquette s’inscrivent dans la création vivante, musiques contemporaines sans snobisme qui se nourrissent de free-rock comme de minimalisme, mais jamais d’académisme.
Michel F Côté est un créateur à tiroirs. Compositeur pour le théâtre (Wajdi Mouawad, Robert Lepage), la danse, le cinéma, il est passé maître dans l’art d’amalgamer comme de soustraire. Ses projets d’ensembles nous ont fait voyager entre le country blasé, le jazz primitif, le rock électronique. En solo ou avec l’ensemble Mecha Fixes Clocks, Côté nous propose des musiques méditatives et denses, toutes dédiées à la contemplation de textures fines, d’harmonies complexes qui se déploient lentement, nous portant dans un état de calme et de volupté.
À L’inattendu… poursuit cette recherche de simplicité. Ici, fini les boucles rythmiques qui hantaient le premier opus de la formation; tout nous entraîne dans la lenteur et la largeur des orchestrations. Réussite éminente, d’une grande beauté, cet album s’inscrit dans la lignée des grandes œuvres méditatives des compositeurs tels que Morton Feldman ou Giacinto Scelsi, mais teinté d’un goût aigu pour les textures riches et les formes épurées héritées du rock comme des musiques expérimentales.
Review
Canada’s Et Records has been going since 2003, and so far released nine releases. These three are all recent, so their catalogue suddenly expands in a big way. We find this label in the world of improvised music. The first one is by one Jean René, who plays acoustic and electric viola and electric guitar. Unlike many of his peers, René plays his instruments in such a way that we can recognize them. The viola is a viola, the guitar is a guitar. That is, perhaps to some, a traditional approach, and that’s also an approach we find in his music. A piece like Outardes sound almost like baroque music. That is however a rarity. Another rarity is Morue, which is the most onkyo piece around here. In his other pieces he shows a love for minimal music in a classical sense. He uses a bit of delay on some of the pieces, to add that sustaining sound. Sometimes it reminds me of very old Steve Reich or Philip Glass music (Prune could be a small version of Violin Phase), but René keeps his pieces very short (somewhere between two and five minutes) and presents them as small miniatures.
Behind Mecha Fixes Clocks we find Michel F Côté (keyboards, electronics, microphones, drums and percussions), but unlike his other releases, this is not a solo or duo work, but, at least from what I gather, a work he composed and plays on, but with extended group of thirteen players, among them Martin Tétreault, Tom Walsh and Jean René. Instruments listed include trumpet, flutes, guitar, clarinet, french horn, trombone and such like. Nine pieces of some great orchestral music. Moving slowly, like gentle minimal music, which slowly, over the course of these pieces built up. It combines improvisation (although sparsely here), with minimal glissandi and small melodies, which rise up from those gentle waves of heavily and heavenly layered small orchestral sounds. Think Olivia Block, but perhaps with a bit more improvisation in some parts. Great chamber music, relaxed atmosphere, jolly fine music.
La Parte Maudite is a trio of Philippe Battikha (trumpet, pedals), Mivil Deschênes (bass, pedals) and Patrick Dion (drums). This is, at least for me, the release I didn’t like that much. The music is that of a heavy nature. Loud bursts of controlled and probably less controlled musical outbursts. Music that comes from that specific cross road of improvised music, loud rock and free jazz. Loud and blearing. One of the things that made me not like this that much was the use of the trumpet. It seems to be coming, at least for me, too much from the world of jazz. I understand the raw power and energy of this trio, but in the end the result didn’t win me over. I’d rather go back to the previous two releases.
Nouveautés CD
Le groupe est un projet du multi-instrumentiste Michel F Côté, qui nous a habitués à aller dans, littéralement, toutes les directions. Cette fois-ci, après le country désabusé ou le jazz du troisième type, le voici plus méditatif que jamais, dirigeant une douzaine de musiciens dans un exercice de retenue extrême. Cette musique a quelque chose de primitif, qui nous ramène à l’aube des temps de la création musicale. Le tout baigne dans une simplicité volontaire qui n’est pas du tout désagréable, mais qui manque quand même singulièrement de dynamique (aucune piste ne troublera votre méditation). Pas sûr que je supporterais 10 minutes en concert, mais pour le taï chi, ça doit être idéal. (3/5)
Listening Diary
My first reaction was: FINALLY a second album from Mecha Fixes Clocks. My second reaction: Is this REALLY Mecha Fixes Clocks? Let me explain: this project led by Michel F Côté (notice the initials) has gone through a few (per)mutations since its beginnings and its eponymous debut released on alien8 recordings. This second album sounds far from that first step. In fact, it sounds closer to Bruire’s Les Fleurs de Léo (another MFC project). The tracks ally composition and improvisation in overlaid stratas, there’s a ton of guest musicians, there’s an irreverent aura about the project, and the album has the feel of a ‘90s Ambiances Magnétiques CD — not that À l’inattendu les dieux livrent passage is backward-looking, but it’s a comeback to a more… musical form of music. Beautiful, aerial, with two Max Steiner tunes funnily inserted, and a duet with Diane Labrosse that almost takes us back to their Duo déconstructiviste CD.
Compact Discs
Launching the 10th edition of the Suoni per il Popolo festival with his latest masterwork, Michel F Côté celebrates over 50 records in 25 years. Drummer, studio wizard, Ambiances Magnétiques and & Records founder, and instigator of more happening art than anyone could know, MFC brings another dream to life with pure imagination, desire, poetry and feeling. A bright jewel in a cool stream. 9/10