This was one heck of an album to track down the details for, which could have been solved simply by the inclusion of a one-sheet. If there was one it must have gotten lost en-route to me from Chain D.L.K. central, and just about everything about this album and its producers had to be sourced off the Internet. Have you ever tried Googling “Political Ritual”? Just use your imagination as the results you’ll get in this day and age. Fortunately, the artists, Félix-Antoine Morin & Maxime Corbeil-Perron, put their names on the album, but both being French-Canadian, much of the info about them and Political Ritual (the name of the project is also the album title) is in French. According to Morin and Corbeil-Perron, Political Ritual build their music in architectural and woven layers of harmony and polarity, arranging ethereal drone next to hard edged buzz or cinematic movements alongside pummeling beats. With live performance as their backdrop, Félix-Antoine Morin and Maxime Corbeil-Perron took to the studio in 2014 for their first album. Corbeil-Perron is a multidisciplinary artist who has created film and video work and interactive installations shown at international events and festivals, as well as making electro-acoustic and mixed-media music as Le Pélican noir and solo — he also started a PhD at the Université de Montréal in fall 2015. A visual artist as well as an electro-acoustic composer, Morin works solo and collaborates with contemporary choreographers, videographers and several other musicians, finding inspiration for his poetic creations in the processual components of traditional and sacred music. Pushing the boundaries of abstraction, these expert improvisors in analog modular and digital synthesis incorporate invented wind instruments, traditional Balinese percussion, field recordings and digital signal processing into their compositions, intent on shaping a transcendent listening experience.

Okay, that’s all well and good, but what does this album sound like? The album is comprised of two long pieces — Ceremonie (20:07) and Projection cathodique (21:35). While ambient in nature, this isn’t a passive kind of ambient, but a very active, organic and highly charged sort of ambient. Ceremonie is full of crackling electronics and uneasy drones of indeterminate machinery. Over time it morphs into quasi-psychedelic Klaus Schulze territory before veering out into more experimental terrain. The oscillations employed are quite unsettling and throughout its droney demeanor, jarring events occur with some frequency in the background. Just when things seem to be humming along nicely the bottom drops out and the listener is transported to an alien construction site on some God-forsaken planet, replete with the distortion of heavy equipment until it grinds to a sudden halt.

Projection cathodique begins with a less forceful demeanor, the twinkling of crystalline high frequency particles over melodic sonorous low tones and held together with hollowish metallic drone substances. The latter sonority intensifies and echoes off in a feedback loop which morphs in myriad directions overtaking all other sonics present. There is a somewhat natural evolution to the unfolding of this piece that you just have to hear as any description fails to do it justice. Let’s just say it gets pretty dense as sonic layers build on top of each other. By its conclusion there is a return to some of the elements that began this piece and so the cycle is complete.

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t think a whole lot of the album on the first go-round, but after repeated plays the subtleties were revealed and the brilliance of the work became evident. That it was primarily released as a limited edition vinyl LP (500 copies, also available as a digital download) makes it an even more vital purchase.

Political Ritual, the eponymous release by the Québécois electronic music duo of Maxime Corbeil-Perron and Félix-Antoine Morin, presents itself as a mystery, white print on a grey cover, a series of lighter, vertical oscilloscope intrusions appearing almost possibly accidental. The roles of the two performer / composers — here improvisers — are not distinguished. Each side of the LP presents a piece about twenty minutes in length. Each is almost monolithic, made up of electronic and electronically altered layers.

Specific textures emerge intermittently, through fields of static and waves of droning sound that sometimes move with the inevitability of lava, that flux of molten stone, metal, and ash, or perhaps an oil spill or an approaching tsunami. While the LP itself is free of annotation, there are brief hints in the press release, including a description of the group’s music and the titles of the two sides. Field recordings and instruments come upon by chance enter the fold.

The first side, Cérémonie, is strongly rhythmic, whether the beats are heard as patterns of static or feedback. There are two marked shifts in the work. The first is an extended keyboard improvisation beginning around the seven-minute mark, perhaps “a wedding harmonium bought from an old, hungry man in an Indian village improvises modal lines,” mentioned in the online text. The second is a sudden break and bass-ward glissando at the eighteen-minute mark that suddenly shifts the whole forward movement of the music. That doesn’t sound like much, but it’s a major event in this context, a wholly new plane.

The second side, Projection_cathodique, begins with chant amidst the static and drones. Its developing rhythms are oscillations, pulses rather than beats. The piece repeatedly cycles towards a crescendo, its materials echoing, the texture thickening; when the patterns change, there’s a sudden turn from tension to repose.

These pieces are genuine experiences — penetrating, insistent, necessary works that fully occupy the time of their realization and hearing. Repeated listening changes them: they literally sound different, richer, more complex, with new elements and relationships emerging, transitions becoming more (and sometimes less) dramatic. Searching this music for answers to what politics and ritual share, only the commonalities of mystery, form, and duration emerge — politics and ritual indistinguishable from one another and from consciousness itself.

Political Ritual est un projet formé des compositeurs montréalais Maxime Corbeil-Perron et Félix-Antoine Morin, deux co-fondateurs de l’étiquette Kohlenstoff Records. Le duo avait publié Oro Axe (2014) sur cette étiquette, une pièce de dix-neuf minutes de musique atmosphérique combinant drone et minimalisme, celle-ci performée en partie de façon improvisée. Ils sont de retour trois ans plus tard avec un premier album éponyme comportant deux nouvelles pièces d’une vingtaine de minutes chacune, en reprenant là où ils nous avaient laissés avec une partie improvisée et une production détaillée qui joue savamment avec le niveau d’abstraction des thèmes musicaux.

Cérémonie ouvre sur plusieurs itérations évoluant à différentes vitesses, créant une atmosphère brumeuse et inquiétante. Le passage s’intensifie, comme un tempo graisseux auquel se colle de la poussière de bruit. On sent un courant électrique servir de lien vers une ligne mélodique d’ordre cinématographique, pas bien loin d’un Blade Runner expérimental. La palette sonore s’éclaircit et se diffuse comme de la fumée d’encens qui remplit lentement la pièce. La mélodie est remplacée par un drone résonant comme un moteur d’avion, texturé ensuite par une itération comme une hélice qui déplace de l’air au ralenti. La résonance des percussions placée vers l’arrière dans le mix assure le déroulement de la scène, bien encadrée par des bruits électriques. La masse sonore se stabilise en prenant progressivement une forme post-rock, qui redouble en intensité avec la guitare électrique toute ne distorsion et réverbérée à point. Ça se termine abruptement en «gros noise sale».

Projection cathodique commence de façon plus aérienne, avec des cordes perdues dans des conduits métalliques, des scintillements dissonants et du «field recording» de ruisseau placé en toile de fond. Le mouvement évolue tranquillement jusqu’à ce que les différentes couches ambiantes deviennent bien denses, s’évaporant à mi-chemin pour amincir la trame, le temps de respirer un peu, et poursuivre dans une forme drone. La masse sonore fait penser à une vièle à roue déconstruite, saturée jusqu’à ce qu’elle redescende dans les basses fréquences pour laisser résonner un dernier vrombissement.

Le premier album de Political Ritual confirme leur combinaison drone/minimaliste, mais au-delà des catégories, ce sont les éléments improvisés qui attirent davantage l’attention. Après plusieurs écoutes, on commence à décoder une partie des effets et traitements et à se rapprocher de la matière première, révélant progressivement le jeu du duo. Le contraste entre l’intention brute et la forme polie entretient très bien le niveau d’abstraction, ça donne envie de chercher une explication à l’expérience auditive, mais on finit par lâcher prise et on monte le volume.

Maxime Corbeil-Perron and Félix-Antoine Morin have released an intriguing new 12” with Ambiances Magnétiques: Political Ritual. The record presents two 20-minute pieces that work more like ‘sound sculptures’ than songs. They take as their subject the detritus of sound, the unwanted buzzes and resonances of technology. On Political Ritual, these sounds move out of the corners and rubbish bins and into plain sight. You are made to confront sound as it really is: caked in surface noise and sonic debris.

Political Ritual is a record of two halves. The first, ‘Cérémonie’, judders like a truck over bumpy terrain. There are moments of what sounds like hyper-engineered studio-production trickery. But in fact, many of these are from acoustic sources, like cellos and organs played in unorthodox styles. There is even the introduction of “a wedding harmonium bought from an old man in an Indian village”.

The unanswered questions left by ‘Cérémonie’ are concluded by the record’s second half: ‘Projection cathodique’. Here, elements of traditional ‘musicality’ creep in, like the bassline that broods over the piece. The ‘politics’ of Political Ritual remain somewhat unclear, but its ambiguity is addictive.

Le coup de foudre est survenu en 2016, dans la petite salle du MAC lors du festival Mutek Montréal. Le duo expérimental composé de Félix-Antoine Morin et Maxime Corbeil-Perron avait littéralement fait trembler les fondations du musée; c’était un moment d’une grande intensité. Jusqu’à tout récemment, c’était malheureusement le seul contact que j’avais eu la chance d’avoir avec Political Ritual. Ce bon souvenir est resté gravé dans ma mémoire, mais les deux musiciens n’avaient jamais recroisé mon chemin par la suite.

Ce temps est maintenant révolu puisque devant moi se trouve leur toute nouvelle offrande. Un magnifique vinyle éponyme proposant deux imposantes pièces de plus de vingt minutes. Forgés sur fond de deuil, d’abus et d’inquiétude, ces deux rituels nous promettent un voyage déstabilisant en territoire hostile. La marche à suivre est simple: montez le volume adéquatement, installez-vous confortablement et laissez les décibels vous percuter de plein fouet.

1. Cérémonie

Si les premières minutes de ce morceau ne vous écrasent pas dans votre siège, c’est parce que vous avez commis une première erreur. Le volume doit obligatoirement être monté d’un cran, car il vous faut entendre les notes siffler comme de violentes rafales de vent. Lorsque vous aurez le sentiment d’être égaré au beau milieu d’un tourbillon sonore, vous comprendrez que vous avez fait le bon choix. Ces bourrasques seront votre moyen de transport pour accéder à l’univers chaotique du duo montréalais. Vous comprendrez rapidement que cette improvisation raconte un récit déconcertant, c’est la trame sonore de quelque chose qui nous surpasse.

J’ai perçu Cérémonie comme une histoire où chaque instrument représente un personnage, tous plus tourmentés les uns que les autres. Ils m’apparaissaient brisés et éraillés, tout comme les outils de créations utilisés pour la confection de cette œuvre écrasante. Félix-Antoine et Maxime y ont déversé leurs tripes, il s’agit ici de l’une des musiques les plus inspirées que j’ai eu la chance de mettre sur ma platine. Chaque écoute vous replongera d’une manière différente dans cette troublante narration, le potentiel de réécoute est littéralement infini tellement ce qui se rend à notre cerveau est étoffé. C’est l’album de prédilection pour déconnecter du triste monde auquel nous sommes condamné·e·s.

2. Projection cathodique

Cette deuxième entité sonore se matérialise comme un long couloir dans lequel nous sommes forcé·e·s d’avancer. C’est une composition caverneuse qui nous ensorcelle avec une multitude de bruits d’ambiance accaparant le spectre auditif. Une fois bien submergé·e·s dans ce gouffre musical, nous réalisons qu’il sera impossible de faire marche arrière. La progression est tout simplement impressionnante, les couches se multiplient avec une délicatesse déstabilisante. Nous ne sommes définitivement plus en contrôle de notre corps et de notre esprit, ce morceau est désormais aux commandes.

Projection cathodique nous plonge entre la vie et la mort, à l’intérieur de ce fameux tunnel qui habite l’imaginaire des êtres humains depuis des lustres. Oscillant entre le trajet vers l’enfer et celui du paradis, la destination finale demeure incertaine. Je crois tout de même que quelque chose de positif ressort de cette tumultueuse création, une lumière jaillit néanmoins à travers la brume. Un album de cette envergure se savoure avec une totale dévotion, sans quoi vous ne serez pas en mesure de saisir l’ampleur du travail qui se dissimule derrière chacune des notes. Il représente une expérience musicale pratiquement inqualifiable, j’ai eu l’impression de faire de la méditation en ayant consommé des substances hallucinogènes. En espérant que vous arriverez aussi à laisser l’immense talent de ces deux musiciens vous faire décoller dans vos pensées les plus lointaines.

Duo formé des électroacousticiens montréalais Félix-Antoine Morin et Maxime Corbeil-Perron, Political Ritual crée des ambiances dont il est peut-être préférable de faire l’expérience en concert, à moins d’avoir des voisins compréhensifs… C’est une musique dense, qui se développe par couches, en construisant des espaces gigantesques, et, comme le disent ses concepteurs: «La seule cause qui importe est celle de mettre le volume à fond». Évidemment, ils ne sont pas les premiers à faire cette recommandation, mais leur musique, toute en textures et large comme un paquebot, bénéficie que l’on porte attention à ce détail. Conçu dans une période «de deuil, d’abus de substances [et] d’inquiétudes géopolitiques», le résultat est assez noir, comme le vinyle qui le supporte.

As Political Ritual, Maxime Corbeil-Perron and Félix-Antoine Morin offer sequences of disparate tones ~ sometimes tonal opposites, often at war ~ and invite listeners to hear their own metaphors. The album is a great experiment on impressions, as this simple prompt leads to all manner of ideas. One of the most obvious (and amusing) is that the acronym PR is itself shared with another more famous word pairing.

We live in a world on the brink of chaos. This simple fact affects all new art, whether consciously or not. “ Cérémonie ” is a study in contrast, beginning in fluttering electronics and solid, growing drones, but eventually incorporating organ-like tones and a bit of melody. One might glean an impression of chaos v. order, modernity v. tradition, sense v. nonsense. By the halfway mark, a new dominant sound emerges, a tempo-driven vibration that sounds like a misread CD-R; this is, however, a record. The music continues to play; the sound continues to intrude, with no end in sight. When stronger voices (beats) emerge, the mechanism rights itself for a brief period, but then changes form and returns. One might liken the effect to the game Whac-a-Mole, arriving at the conclusion that nothing will ever be perfect, that systems will always fail, and that even if one area is fixed, another will break. From this conclusion will stem one’s worldview. Either it’s worth trying, or it’s not. It’s worth going on, or it’s not. The evidence of this artistic statement is a vote for the latter.

Side B is a different animal: subtle, soothing, and calm. The first sounds of “ Projection_cathodique ” are those of water and chimes. This initial context makes the dark chords seem more ritualistic than foreboding. Is this still Political Ritual? Is this the longed-for nirvana that arrives at the tail end of all our efforts, making every ounce of suffering worthwhile? Or is this the sound of narcotic escape, a surrender to barbiturate entertainment, a desensitization to the world as it is? The two artists again provide little clue, but perhaps their very obliqueness is a clue: think for yourselves, people, we don’t have to tell you what everything means! All we will say is that the piece is lovely, like hands gently passed across doorway curtains, activating beads and bells. Compare the two sides and realize that they live in the same twelve inches of space, like a flattened globe. Make whatever conclusions you may.

So far I assumed that Ambiances Magnetiques was mainly a label devoted to a wide variety of improvised music, in all its guises. Perhaps Political Ritual is also along the lines of that, but it sounds surely quite a bit different. It is a duo of Felix Antoine Morin and Maxime Corbeil-Perron and they use ‘analogue modular and digital synthesis and incorporate invented wind instruments, traditional Balinese percussion, field recordings and digital signal processing’, which still sounds quite different than what is pressed on this LP. It is, quite frankly, a pretty noisy beast, this record. It is very rich with electronic sound, pushing sonic boundaries, with minimalist beats, and yet also it is not without harmony, such as the processed accordion on ‘Ceremonie’. It eventually gets all a bit distorted here and the needle almost jumps off because of all the frequencies cut in these grooves, but it goes well. The dynamic range of the music is enormous, I would think. From deep end bass to high pitched frequencies, but I’d like to emphasize that, even under the heavy weight of some of this, this is not a record about (improvised) noise. Political Ritual therefore has too many other interests and tricks up their sleeves; be it drone, massive ambient or the Pan Sonic inspired single bass beat, it all has a place in this music. No matter what it is, Political Ritual plays it with sheer intensity and delivers a most powerful record. I must admit that invented wind instruments and/or Balinese percussion seemed to instruments that I didn’t recognize in this music, and all seemed to find their origins in electronics, be it analogue or digital. I am not sure what and if ‘political’ and/or ‘ritual’ mean in this context but if it has to do with creating something forceful they surely managed to do so very well. This is not music you stick on for pure pleasure, but also to arrive at some agitated state. I am sure if a riot needed a soundtrack this duo could play one.

Thumping rhythms, drones, effects, and subtle keyboard-laden atmospherics are the primary drivers of Political Ritual, a two-track album from the group of the same name. Consisting of the duo of Maxime Corbeil-Perron and Félix-Antoine Morin, Political Ritual explores the fringes of space-rock, ambient, modern composition, and minimalist techno with a hazy irreverence.

Cérémonie, at 20 minutes, is the livelier of the pieces, featuring the aforementioned driving, trance-inducing rhythms overlaid with grungy drones, as well as brief synth and keyboard themes. Borrowing techniques from experimental modern classical music, Political Ritual blends captured sounds with synthetic creations in a seamless fashion. Projection_cathodique, also clocking in right around 20 minutes, focuses on a set of Berlin-school drones accentuated with bells and static-laden background ambiance. From time to time, electroacoustic elements and scratchy rhythmic effects are introduced. But the emphasis remains on deep and echoing sinusoids.

Political Ritual, the album, is a disturbing yet cinematic exploration of indistinct abstractions combined with concrete musical aspects. Given how difficult it is to break new ground in this field, credit is due to Corbeil-Perron and Morin for a unique amalgam that is somehow both fresh and familiar. Strong recommendation.