Three new Ambiances Magnétiques releases ranked well on Vancouver’s CJSF experimental charts for the May 21 to June 17, 2002 period. The new Bruire album, the prehistoric Chants rupestres, ranked 9th. Who’s Playing, by Canadian pianist Lee Pui Ming is in 14th place. And finally, Canot-camping, expédition 4, an orchestral adventure by Jean Derome, ranked 17th.

John Oswald is the feature story of the 2002 April issue (#219) UK magazine The Wire: “The prince of plunderphonia recalls his battles with the majors for his artistic right to reclaim his sound environment from the noise pollution of pop by recycling it through his plunderphonics system.”

«Dis, Blaise…» chanson du Transsibérien is the new work by Pierre Cartier. Inspired by the famous Blaise Cendrars’ poem, «Dis, Blaise…» chanson du Transsibérien is a double CD on which {nbio:cartier_pi} joins forces with musicians Jean Derome, Bernard Falaise, Jean René, Pierre Tanguay and Tom Walsh for an inspiring journey.

After Bavards and Muets, Klaxon Gueule presents Grain. A trio that never cease to amaze, Klaxon Gueule is composed of drummer Michel F Côté, guitar player Bernard Falaise and bassist Alexandre St-Onge.

Led by guitarist Philippe Venne and dominated by the exuberant drummer Frédéric Lebrasseur, the Quebec City group Interférence Sardines puts on the table an updated version of the Rock-in-Opposition sound. They take their cue from Henry Cow, but also from Central-European folk and rock musics (Dunaj, Uz Jsme Doma), Quebec musique actuelle (André Duchesne in particular), and Frank Zappa. The Sardines play complex but very lively instrumental pieces, along with the occasional oddball song. After a first album self-released in 1997, the group got signed to the prestigious Montréal label Ambiances Magnétiques.

The group started in early 1996 from an impulse from Venne, its main composer. A music student like most of his bandmates, Venne recruited Andrée Bilodeau (violin, voice), Lyne Goulet (saxophone), friend Jimmie LeBlanc (bass), and Lebrasseur, a maverick virtuoso able to do things with two hands you probably couldn’t do with five (provided you’d even imagine doing them in the first place). The Sardines played their first gig on April 4 that year. LeBlanc soon left to study classical guitar. His replacement Sébastien Doré had barely time to come to grasp with the material before the group started work on their first album, financed in part by a provincial program for workforce development. In 1997 they won first prize at the CONGA, a talent competition held at the Université Laval. Mare Crisium was released shortly after and the group continued to perform sporadically in Quebec City and Montréal.

In 1998 the Sardines appeared at the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. A year later Goulet called it quits on the count of a pregnancy. A second violinist, Marc Gagnon, was brought in the fill the void, steering the group’s sound closer to the Klezmer/Gypsy paradigm. Work on a second album began in late 1999, but it would take two years to complete Zucchini, finally released in November 2001 on Ambiances Magnétiques. Meanwhile group members got involved in a string of other projects, the most active being the neo-trad party group Les Batinses (with Bilodeau and Lebrasseur).

A pianist and keyboardist based in Montréal, Guillaume Dostaler is what you can call a trusty sideman. He is a favorite collaborator among Ambiances Magnétiques artists and has appeared on records by Jean Derome, Robert Marcel Lepage, Joane Hétu, Patrice Desbiens and Nathalie Derome. His work with international artists has been limited, mostly because of his preference to remain in Montréal, but he played with Lawrence “Butch” Morris on his visit to the city. He is a gifted pianist with a mind opened to new ideas.

Dostaler had a classical music upbringing and studied piano at the renowned École Vincent d’Indy in Montréal. He started playing professionally in the early 1980s with a number of ensembles, mostly in jazz and new music, but also briefly performed funk. His first gigs included Karen Young, René Lussier, Lepage, and Derome. His seat in the latter’s avant-jazz group Jean Derome et les Dangereux Zhoms throughout the 1990s is what brought him the most attention. With this group he recorded three CDs for the label Ambiances Magnétiques (Carnets de voyage, 1994; Navré, 1995; Torticolis, 1998) and appeared in dozens of jazz and new music festivals across Canada (Montréal, Vancouver, Guelph), the United States (Edgefest in Ann Arbor, Michigan) and Europe (Moers in Germany, Banlieues Bleues in Paris, France).

When Morris came to conduct a Montréal ensemble in 1995, Dostaler enlisted and so appears on the document Conduction 23 (1996, NewWorld). But his talent both as a cutting-edge improvisor and imaginative sideman are better illustrated on Derome’s witty Je me souviens and Hétu’s minimalist Musique d’hiver. He also toured Quebec as part of performance artist/singer Nathalie Derome’s trio for Les 4 Ronds Sont Allumés.