La femme territoire ou 21 fragments d’humus
Joane Hétu
Not to be missed. — The Squid’s Ear, USA
C’est tour à tour amusant, mordant, touchant. — SOCAN, Paroles & Musique, Canada
Prix Opus 2012-13: Disque de l’année — Finaliste
Featuring five singers / narrators / musicians / noise-makers and the composer’s layered field recordings (of wind, rivers, various birds and frogs) as well as percussion, bells and piano, Joane Hétu has composed a fascinating and rich soundscape.
Incorporating texts by Cavafy, Shakespeare, Cechov, Caille, as well as her own’s, Hétu explores again her favourite territories: from the intimacy of sex and the body, to the pain of loss and death, to art and politics.
These fragments of a woman’s life co-exist in a tightly woven musical patchwork that is highly personal, iconoclastic and decidedly poignant.
With a 32-page booklet.
- Composer(s): Joane Hétu
- Writer(s): Constantin P Cavafy, Sophie Calle, William Shakespeare, Joane Hétu
- Performer(s): Joane Hétu, Susanna Hood, Alice Tougas St-Jak, Jean Derome, Isaiah Ceccarelli
- Cover image: Céline Côté
- Graphic design: Joane Hétu
- Mastering: Bernard Slobodian
CD (AM 210)
- 1L’habitat, 4:20
- 2Le territoire (2010), 5:09
- 3Fragment Territoire, 1:19
- 4Enthousiasme, 4:31
- 5L’habit, 1:57
- 6Opinion, 3:31
- 7Fragment Territoire 2, 1:04
- 8L’amoureuse (2010), 4:29
- 9Fragment Amour, 1:03
- 10En parlant de la chose, 4:03
- 11Fragment Bruitiste, 0:59
- 12Cochonne (2010), 4:53
- 13Fragment mémoire (2010), 2:40
- 14Ma mémoire, 2:34
- 15La visite médicale, 1:59
- 16La magie du corps, 2:05
- 17S’la couler douce, 2:52
- 18Fragment O, 2:13
- 19Nue, 5:16
- 20
- 21Ô madame la mort (2006), 4:06
- Label: Ambiances Magnétiques
- AM 210
- 2012
- UCC 771028121021
- Total duration: 63:48
- Sympathique case
- 126 mm × 126 mm × 5 mm
- 50 g
On the web
Download (AM 210_NUM)
This item can be downloaded and/or listened to at joanehetu.bandcamp.com.
Not in catalogue
This item is not available through our website. We have catalogued it for information purposes only.
- 1L’habitat, 4:20
- 2Le territoire (2010), 5:09
- 3Fragment Territoire, 1:19
- 4Enthousiasme, 4:31
- 5L’habit, 1:57
- 6Opinion, 3:31
- 7Fragment Territoire 2, 1:04
- 8L’amoureuse (2010), 4:29
- 9Fragment Amour, 1:03
- 10En parlant de la chose, 4:03
- 11Fragment Bruitiste, 0:59
- 12Cochonne (2010), 4:53
- 13Fragment mémoire (2010), 2:40
- 14Ma mémoire, 2:34
- 15La visite médicale, 1:59
- 16La magie du corps, 2:05
- 17S’la couler douce, 2:52
- 18Fragment O, 2:13
- 19Nue, 5:16
- 20
- 21Ô madame la mort (2006), 4:06
- Label: Ambiances Magnétiques
- AM 210_NUM
- 2012
- UCC 771028121083
- Total duration: 63:48
Images
-
Susanna Hood, Joane Hétu, Alice Tougas St-Jak, in the piece Territoire [Photo: Sandra Fotozone, Montréal (Québec), October 27, 2010] -
Jean Derome, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Alice Tougas St-Jak, Joane Hétu, Susanna Hood, in the piece La visite médicale [Photo: Jean-Claude Désinor, Montréal (Québec), October 27, 2010] -
Alice Tougas St-Jak, Susanna Hood, in the piece S’la couler douce [Photo: Jean-Claude Désinor, Montréal (Québec), October 27, 2010] -
Alice Tougas St-Jak, Susanna Hood,Joane Hétu, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Jean Derome, in the piece Opinion [Photo: Jean-Claude Désinor, Montréal (Québec), October 27, 2010] -
Alice Tougas St-Jak, Joane Hétu, Susanna Hood, Jean Derome, Isaiah Ceccarelli, in the piece Nue [Photo: Jean-Claude Désinor, Montréal (Québec), October 27, 2010] -
Jean Derome, Joane Hétu, Isaiah Ceccarelli, in the piece Ma mémoire [Photo: Jean-Claude Désinor, Montréal (Québec), October 27, 2010] -
Alice Tougas St-Jak, Joane Hétu, Susanna Hood, in the piece Notes sur la mélodie des choses [Photo: Jean-Claude Désinor, Montréal (Québec), October 27, 2010] -
Isaiah Ceccarelli, Jean Derome, Joane Hétu, Susanna Hood, in the piece L’habit [Photo: Jean-Claude Désinor, Montréal (Québec), October 27, 2010] -
Alice Tougas St-Jak,Joane Hétu, Jean Derome, Isaiah Ceccarelli, Susanna Hood, in the piece Enthousiasme [Photo: Sandra Fotozone, Montréal (Québec), October 27, 2010] -
Susanna Hood, Alice Tougas St-Jak, Jean Derome, Joane Hétu, Isaiah Ceccarelli, in the piece Cochonne [Photo: Jean-Claude Désinor, Montréal (Québec), October 27, 2010] -
Joane Hétu, Susanna Hood, Jean Derome, Isaiah Ceccarelli in the piece L’amoureuse [Photo: Jean-Claude Désinor, Montréal (Québec), October 27, 2010]
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In the press
Heard in
Joane Hétu’s La Femme territoire ou 21 fragments d’humus is a multi disciplinary piece dedicated to the female experience; sex, death, loss, and the joy of life itself enjoy aural designation on these 21 tracks. Hétu wrings limitless emotion from a myriad of sources with the help of Susanna Hood, Jean Derome, Isaiah Ceccarelli, and Alice Tougas St-Jak. Voice, accordion, woodwinds, and strings interact with field recordings, electronics, and spectral percussion, which in addition to prose and dance add up to a varied and complex work. Every facet of the piece is informed by an avant garde aesthetic as elements of free jazz, musique concrète, and early electronic composition support a vocal narrative that is an intense world of sound unto itself. The vocalists scream, mumble, whisper, and growl (not to mention actually sing), expressing an incredible range of emotion and timbre, even when the words are free of their literal meaning. I do not speak French, so I am missing an entire dimension of this recording, but it’s quite a rich listening experience regardless.
These diverse elements repeatedly coalesce into sublime vignettes, such as on L’amoureuse, which is a tour de force of vocal gymnastics. Male and female voices advance the limits of human ability beginning with broken, sputtering non-language that closely resembles the bushmen’s chatter from The Gods Must Be Crazy. This particular “fragment” alternates between passages of unison recitation and extended vocal and musical techniques before resolving into a dizzying climax of whispering. Fragment amour saunters in like an elephant on roller skates with alien sounds that could be air escaping a balloon or tape manipulation, followed by sensuous breath and arcing, bent saxophone notes. Nue features interesting moments where unison voices strike harmonies with each other and produce chords that eventually waver in and out of pitch. The song eventually falls into a dissonant refrain before returning to more vocal harmonizing. This CD is remarkable in every way, with an exceptional recording capturing some truly remarkable pieces of sound art. Not to be missed.
Critique

Critique

Review
The new solo work by Hétu is most fascinating. If ‘pittoresque’ is a useful qualification to describe abstract soundworks, I would like to use it in the case. An intriguing work. It is a vocal dominated work, sparsely instrumented and completed by noises, sounds and field recording. All five players sing and play (accordion, percussion, flutes, sax, objects, etc.). Most texts are by Hétu herself, plus some by Cavafy, Shakespeare, Cechov and Caille, all in translated in French. But this was not limiting my experience of this piece, like some of her earlier work. Most texts are spoken, performed, sung and everything in between. The whole is made up of 21 small pieces, each with its own dramatic and musical quality.
Altrisuoni
Il nuovo progetto della Hétu, costruito secondo il modello del teatro sonoro, è sviluppato da un quintetto di musicisti-interpreti che vede in organico, oltre alla stessa compositrice, Alice Tougas St-Jak, Jean Derome, Isaiah Ceccarelli, and Susanna Hood. La struttura a scene-frammenti esplora temi la cui diversità epistemologica (sesso, corpo, politica, ecologia, morte) viene unificata attraverso l’idea della complessità femminile. La scrittura musicale è caratterizzata dal modo di lavorare sulla melodia proprio del rock in opposition e dell’avant-song, che può concedersi anche sembianze popolari come in S’la couler douce, limpida melodia per l’accordion e la voce della Tougas St-Jak. Più spesso però la forma canzone viene destrutturata tra tecniche vocali estreme, invenzioni patafisiche, field recordings, rumorismi da oggetti trovati, questo forse per meglio rappresentare la frammentarietà dell’esistenza. Ci vogliono un paio di ascolti per cogliere il valore complessivo di forma e sostanza del lavoro, che peraltro subito può essere apprezzato nell’impasto maschile-femminile di Ô madame la morte, nell’aplomb contemporaneo di Fragment Discipline de vie e nell’ugola quasi bianca di Susanna Hood (Nue). Ed è principalmente attraverso il canto che si rinviene traccia di quel senso difficile d’unità al quale si accennava e pure l’immagine d’una donna-umanità ferita ma ancora viva.
Ambiances nouvelles
À l’automne 2011, le mot courait depuis un moment dans le milieu des musiques actuelles de Montréal que l’étiquette maîtresse du genre, Ambiances magnétiques, cesserait ses activités. Fondée en 1983 par un noyau de musiciens novateurs, la maison allait établir un style aux confins de tous les autres: loin du jazz, mais zyeutant la musique improvisée libre, se tenant loin de la pop la plus rock, mais attirée tout de même par ses tendances plus expérimentales, cette jeune cohorte ne dédaignait pas non plus les recherches de pointe en musique contemporaine, sans toutefois se camper dans des partitions entièrement écrites.
De ses débuts modestes, l’étiquette prit son plein essor en 1992 avec l’établissement de sa maison de distribution Dame Distribution musique actuelle. D’une vingtaine de titres à cette époque, le catalogue passa à plus de 200 titres, comptant plusieurs parutions incluant des grandes pointures internationales en musiques de création.
Mais tout juste un an après la sortie de sa «dernière» cuvée, Ambiances nous revient, tel un Phénix renaissant de ses cendres. En effet, trois nouveaux titres s’ajoutent à son catalogue, ceux-ci lancés en public à la mi-décembre. Profitant de l’occasion, on signalait la reprise de ses activités mais à un rythme réduit, trois ou quatre nouveautés par an au plus. Sans plus tarder, passons à ces trois albums en question.
Quatrième document issu du trio Derome-Guilbeault-Tanguay, Wow! (AM209) confirme la merveilleuse confrérie de ces trois complices empreints de jazz jusqu’aux bouts de leurs phalanges. Se vouant bien sûr au répertoire de la note bleue, le groupe propose également des compositions tout aussi convaincantes de Derome, qui excelle toujours à la flûte, tout comme à ses deux saxos. Guilbeault, de sa pulsation de roc, est un véritable Gibraltar, Tanguay est un modèle de swing et d’inventivité. Que vous ayez entendu les autres enregistrements, peu importe, tout fana de jazz ne saurait se passer de ce disque au titre des plus pertinents.
Autre disque, autre proposition musicale, celle-ci nous vient de l’Ensemble SuperMusique (Bruit court-circuit AM210). Cette formation «toutes étoiles» (à défaut d’un meilleur descriptif) incarne comme nulle autre l’esthétique de ce collectif. Six titres s’étalent sur cette surface d’un peu plus de 50 minutes, l’un d’eux offert en deux versions d’ailleurs si dissemblables qu’il est difficile de reconnaître leur parenté. Outre Derome (qui, chose intéressante, joue du saxo ténor ici), on retrouve les Martin Tétreault, Joane Hétu, Danielle Palardy Roger et des plus jeunes comme Guido del Fabbro (vln), Émilie Girard-Charest (vcl.) et Virgil Sharkya (synthé.) Les habitués seront comblés.
La Femme territoire (AM211), enfin, est une œuvre de plus d’une heure de Joane Hétu, créée à l’Agora de la Danse en 2010. J’ai assisté au spectacle et apprécié, mais il manque ici la dimension visuelle de cet événement pluridisciplinaire (dont on peut voir quelques photos dans le livret incluant tous les textes lus et chantés). Je laisse donc aux auditeurs le soin de former leur propre opinion sur ce disque.
Review
For the past decade, Ms. Hétu has been involved in a series of thematic works, each one different yet somehow related. The pictures in the 36-page booklet inside the CD show what looks like a serious operatic work involving musicians and dancers. Each of the 21 short pieces on this disc involves a text which is printed in the booklet in French. Most of the texts were written by Ms. Hétu with others taken from Shakespeare, Anton Chekov, Constantin Cavafy and Sophie Calle. Since my French is rudimentary at best, I can’t tell what most of the texts are about. Since Ms. Hétu uses minimal instruments here (melodica, flute, accordion, sax & percussion), most of the sounds come from objects and voices. Still, the overall sound is most impressive, stirring, serious, focused and most often fascinating. There are a few layers of voices used minimally and selectively as well as objects like poured water, toys, dolls, a whistle, bells, a wine glass, assorted unseen percussives and things that we don’t know without bring listed. Even without knowing what the words mean, I was still knocked out by the way this entire disc unfolds and evolves. My feeling is that Ms. Hétu is working towards creating an effective contemporary opera. If she ever gets the funding, she will no doubt be successful at illustrating a wonderful French-language production worthy of serious consideration. Perhaps we will be lucky enough to see and hear it staged at the New York City Opera House. Stranger things have happened.
Listening Diary
La femme territoire is both the logical next step and the complete opposite of Joane Hétu’s previous work Filature. While Filature was a large-scale production with lots of people involved, lots of rhythm too, La femme territoire is limited to five performers and plays out in a Spartan, highly-conceptualized setting. Both are multimedia works, but while Filature was trying to overload your senses, La femme territoire is offering less in order to say more, and music, poetry, dance, video art, and performance art are all more tightly intertwined. Obviously, this CD does not document the whole project (though the booklet contains several photos of the production), and I was worried about that, since I have had the pleasure of seeing the full production of La femme territoire in October 2010. Well, the music does well on its own. I’d even say it imposes itself. These 21 fragments of humus are not easy to absorb, but beyond their stripped-down nature, the deconstruction, the atomization of musical elements, I reconnect with everything that makes Joane… Joane: a series of dichotomies like melody/noise, organization/improvisation, tenderness/desire, reflection/craziness. A record of troubling beauty. With Susanna Hood, Alice Tougas St-Jak, Jean Derome, and Isaiah Ceccarelli.