Jean Derome is one of the co-founders of the Ambiances Magnétiques label, a Montréal-based label specialising in avant-garde, new music, improv, and contemporary creations. He plays all sorts of instruments, but especially flute and saxophone. He studied jazz, improv, contemporary, twelve-tone, atonal, folk and even pop. All this comes forward in his presentation of 23 short pieces of pure improvisation. He compiled this record at random, by playing three discs of each 23 different pieces in a shuffle mode, letting chance be the sole reign in compiling this album. While at first the music doesn’t seem to capture you in any way but annoyance, after a while, when you get used to the abstract tones and the free form improvisations which are seemingly without any structure, the album grows slowly but steadily. A big plus is that Derome never takes himself and his music too seriously. The overall tone is light and almost playful, and the fun which he had while making it shows very obviously. The music meanders between harsh atonal noise and soft spoken words, and everything in-between. This all is made by several different (mostly acoustic) instruments, most of them unrecognisably altered. There is a whole, underlying theme explaining why Derome made this recording in this particular way — it has something to do with dictionaries, fashion and catalogues, believe it or not — but it would take too much time and effort to present it all here.

Le magasin de tissu is a nice album if you’re into pure, abstract improv music, and if you are, you surely will be able to enjoy Jean Derome’s music. However, it doesn’t reach new levels in the Ambiances Magnétiques catalogue. Therefore, this album will only be really interesting if you’re a complete fanatic or if this is your first encounter with music from this label.

Turntablism that has absolutely nothing to do with hiphop. These soundconstructions come from the comunity around the Ambiances Magnétiques label, and that information ought to be enough to start some serious drooling on the avant-garde fanatics, such as myself. Diane Labrosse and Martin Tétrault are the soundsculptors on the Parasites album, and their tool, among modern electronic equipment and other toys, is the turntable. Not that it can be identified as such. But there are more unidentifiable aspects: where is the melody? Where is the songstructure? Where ends one track and begins another? The answer to all three: unknown. This completely improvised electronic soundscape varies in atmosphere and texture and does this without adding any kind of melody or structure. And why they bothered to cut things up into 15 tracks and name each track in both English and French as well, we’ll probably never know. I could mention that Bad Amoeba sounds like this and Stop Interfering! like that, but why? The sonic exploration goes by continuesly, without pauses. This adds to the hypnotic effect the music surprisingly has. When at first the soundscape tends to float by leaving anything lasting, at a certain moment you’re just getting into it, and you’ll slowly be sucked in the electronic swamp. And although there is a complete absence of melody or even a steady and comfortable drone, that swamp is far from unpleasant.

A mitzvah, this album, I’m telling you! Without a cover to tell you otherwise, you would swear this was the latest offering from one of downtown NYC’s plethora of latin/klezmer/Balkan/jazz juggernauts on John Zorn’s Tzadik label. Instead, Ipso Facto turn out to be Montréalers, featuring David Buissieres on guitars, Chantal Bergeron on violin, Simon Dolan on standing bass and Francis Roberge on percussion.

The quartet plays with verve, restrained passion, and a healthy dollop of humour. Though lovingly and seriously executed, most every track betrays a little glint in the corner of the eye, a little “Yiddish Meshuggas” (as the second cut is entitled). Ipso Facto effortlessly slide between rhythms and styles, with the hearty acoustic voice of Bergeron’s violin usually taking the lead. Time changes between and even within the cuts make the twelve-track CD appear to contain even more tracks. A lively latin dance tune will suddenly slow down to catch its breath and continue as a reggae stroll; a cowboy hoedown will take sharp, jazzy turns during the refrain.

All the tunes have been penned by Buissieres (save one on which he shares a writing credit with Bergeron), and thus La spirale de l’escargot is also a compact showcase presenting the broad talent of a first-rate composer. And Buissieres leaves plenty of room for his compadres to follow their own muses in short bursts of inspired improvisation.

Life-affirming chamber stylings, compellingly composed and impelling the listener up onto the dancefloor, imaginary or hardwood.

La Spirale de l’Escargot (“The snail’s spiral”) introduced this young instrumental band from Quebec. An acoustic quartet of guitar, violin, double bass and drums/percussion, Ipso Facto cooks up an interesting recipe of world jazz fusion. Elements of Klezmer, tango, folk and fusion jazz are blended in simple but colorful compositions. The unchanging instrumentation ensures a cohesion from piece to piece that the wide palette of styles used could not provide. In terms of influences, one hears the progressive folk of Conventum (in a piece like Volapük in particular) and Art Zoyd in their acoustic beginnings (and without the bleak atmospheres), but also Astor Piazzolla and Jesse Cook. If most of the pieces have good rhythm, sometimes the melodies are thin, giving an impression of hollowness (De temps en temps, Les bleus). Through the creative countrapuntal voices and cross-stylistic arrangements one also finds something mechanical in the interpretation — as if the musicians were still prisoners of their parts, not completely comfortable. But when things click, they do marvelously: Yiddish meshugass is a great take at neo-Klezmer, the violin melody in Soleil rouge gives you something to dance to, and the aforementioned Volapük shows how the group can tastefully tackle more complex compositions, leaning toward the avant-garde — they should actually try more of that, it gives their music a more precise identity. A good debut.

For Ohmix the Quebec based Avatar Foundation invited eight composers to plunder the back catalogue of its OHM Éditions imprint and produce new work through their remixes and transformations. German recyclist Ralf Wehowsky, of P16.D4, kicks things off with a steadily building shimmer that peaks in a flurry of samples followed by a gentle, pulsing decline. Montréal turntablist Martin Tetreault’s brief contribution collapses muitiple sources into a jittery flux, music and voice sped up and whisked into an agitated state. French composer Christian Calon produces a tense dystopian piece in which an impoverished and seemingly distressed human voice is hemmed in by shadowy electroacoustic forms. Terre Thaemlitz contributes Transit(ional Edit) a clicking gridlock of synthetic horn sounds, an angry and terminally immobile jam. There are two pieces from arch plunderer John Oswald. Ohmigone (re)constructs a radio phone conversation, empty words drifting amongst inhuman sounds in a communication vacuum. Ridge builds from ripples to waves to a breaker of lush piano music. Spikier piano runs through an animated piece by Diane Labrosse, who has played with the groups Wondeur Brass and Justine. Tinkling bells, organ chords and reedy blasts, cartoon squeaks and distorted human voices are among the other elements in this soundtrack to some enigmatic narrative. Ambient technician David Kristian spins out an enigma of another kind. His Ohmite gradually intensifies from pinpoint to full glare without ever revealing the source of its luminous throb. Finally Alexandre St-Onge, an improvising associate of Kristian, drains the remaining air from the Ohmix atmosphere, mimicking the micro rhythms of a puncture or a gas cylinder with an open valve. A long, measured breath out. The OHM policy of taking risks often results in albums that include arresting episodes yet are uneven overall. A more selective project, Ohmix is consistently worthwhile.

Sacré début d’année pour le tromboniste Claude St-Jean, en “tournée montréalaise” avec les deux ensembles qu’il dirige, soit Les Projectionnistes et l’Orkestre des Pas Perdus. Il y avait un bout de temps que l’on n’avait vu Les Projectionnistes et ça faisait du bien de les retrouver à la Casa del Popolo, vendredi dernier. Et en format augmenté avec ça. Roberto Murray (sax alto) et Jean Sabourin (sousaphone), deux transfuges de l’O.P.P., se joignant au quintette habituel pour enrichir les arrangements de St-Jean. Le sousaphone couplé à la contrebasse de Tommy Babin, on peut dire que ça donne de la présence dans les graves! C’est sur cette base solide, chauffée par le jeu toujours précis et inventif de Rémi Leclerc à la batterie, que St-Jean construit ses fanfaronnades éclectiques et déjantées. Avec Pierre Labbé au sax ténor et Bernard Falaise à la guitare, les échanges de solos sont nombreux et jamais ennuyeux. Falaise est un joueur important dans la musique en technicolor des Projectionnistes; expert dans la manipulation des traitements du son, il ajuste celui de sa guitare à chaque situation et procure à l’ensemble de la profondeur de champ.

L’Orkestre des Pas Perdus, c’est en quelque sorte la version marching band des Projectionnistes. Les deux ensembles partagent d’ailleurs quelques pièces, Claude St-Jean s’amusant à transcrire ses arrangements pour l’une ou l’autre formation. Que des cuivres cette fois-ci devant la batterie de Rémi Leclerc. Trombone, trompette, sousaphone et saxophones. Roberto Murray prend ici le sax ténor, laissant à Jean-Denis Levasseur le soin de réchauffer l’alto, et c’est Maxime St-Pierre qui pistonne la trompette. Une soufflerie qui décoiffe. Oscillant entre le jazz et le funk, ces cuivres-là donnent une nouvelle définition au terme heavy métal. Ils tournaient aux États-Unis l’année dernière et dans l’Ouest l’année d’avant, et on ne les a pas vus à Montréal depuis le Festival de Jazz de 1998. Faudrait peut-être ajouter quelques chaises…