The first and very fruitful meeting of French double bass player Joëlle Léandre and Italian pianist Gianni Lenoci, Sur une balançoire (“On a swing”) shifts between delicate modern constructions and adventurous flurry of free improv. Assuredly, the rich playing of these two musicians will fulfill the needs of all music lovers.

Just like his loops of sound and light, Pierre-André Arcand is an artist in a state of perpetual evolution. A renegade of sound poetry, over the last years he has developed installations of sound and visual permutations. Digital mechanics? Electronic acoustics? For {nbio:arcand_pi}, everything happens by mutation! His latest hybrid project, Atlas Epileptic, presents a selection of audio works and a second section of audiovisual compositions. Pierre-André Arcand will officially launch his new album on September 25, 2004, during his performance at Désert, an multimedia event held at Montréal’s des Carrieres incinerator.

For its third discographic release on the Ambiances Magnétiques label (the 15th of his career!), composer and guitar player Tim Brady presents his first symphony for solo electric guitar, sampler, live electronics and chamber ensemble. And this ensemble is none other than the famed Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, conducted by [vaillancourt_lo]. Due to its 24-bit captation, monkish stusio work and {nbio:brady_ti}’s musicianship, Playing Guitar: Symphony #1 is nothing less than a major work of the contemporary repertoire. The album is launched ,September 15, 2004, during the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne’s opening concert for the 2004-2005 season, at Montréal’s Claude-Champagne concert hall.

Albums like Puce à l’oreille divide the audience into three groups: those who get it, those who don’t get it and think it’s ludicrous, and those who don’t get it but are willing to believe that someone out there probably does. I like to think I’m in camp three, though there are times when I start to look toward the second camp and suspect that they may have a point. Then I realize that I’ve learned more about myself and my own tastes while listening to Puce à l’oreille than I did about the album itself.

The disc is the product of an afterthought: Mélanie Auclair, a singer and cellist, wanted to explore music with several artists who had influenced her over the years. What began as an informal jam session evolved into the tracks we hear on the album. However, this is no Phish concert; this is minimalist, modal jazz, world music, ambient acoustics and verbal noises that don’t pass for lyrics in the Western world. As such, I’m reluctant to dismiss the album out of hand because it’s clearly not targeted at my own personal demographic — and especially as I enjoyed a good deal of it. Auclair is a wonderful cellist with an incredible experimental streak and the musicians she has surrounded herself with are all highly skilled, if unconventional. The raw string duets between Mélanie and Eric Auclair on Puce à l’oreille 4, and her pairing with saxophonist Charles Papasoff on Puce à l’oreille 5, engage me because these are instruments I can relate to, albeit played in nouvelle (to me) ways. But as the album veers into the occasional vocals, which are really a barrage of guttural noises somewhere between sex and death, and which at one point resemble vomiting parakeets, I’ll admit that I can’t help but glance back at camp two and wonder if they’re the ones who are missing something, or if I am.

Le Band de poètes (“The Poets’ Band”) will record its first album during a series of three shows at Le Va-et-Vient, (Montréal) September 2, 3 and 4. 2004,. The Band features Geneviève Letarte, José Acquelin, D. Kimm, Guy Marchamps, Bernard Falaise and Normand Guilbeault. Four poets and two musicians trades musical and litteral lines in this “deliciously delinquent” show.

Joëlle Léandre is a very well known improvisor from France, a momument of european improvised music. Her discography is enormous, her collaborations are numerous. She needs no further introduction. Gianni Lenoci on the other hand is a rising star from Italy. He teaches Jazz and Contemporary Music at the Nino Rota Conservatory in Monopoli. He is known for his work as a member the Eugenio Colombo Quartet, a famous quartet in Italy. With computer music composer Franco Degrassi he made an album for the british ASC Records. As a performer of contemporary music he feels affinity with the music of Morton Feldman, John Cage, a.o. This he has in common with Joëlle Léandre who considers John Cage to be one of her most important teachers. How did the meeting between the two come by? Lenoci invited Léandre for a clinic at his conservatory, but also for a recording session because Lenoci had the feeling that “this was the right moment to organize a recording session with Joëlle Léandre.” Alas liner notes do not explain what established this “right moment”. Anyway, to be more exact, on may 31, 2003 they spend a day in a studio in Bari, and recorded 14 improvisations that are all named Balançoire (1 up to 14). Listening to the music the expression ‘civilised improvisation’ came to my mind. The playing is a little clean and controlled, no wild outbrakes or cry from the heart. Léandre and Lenoci stay very kind to each other. But the music is intense and spontaneous on the other hand. Without question we hear two very capable improvisors with great vocabulary and a successfull first meeting. The last track, Balançoire 14, is the most funny track, were Lenoci touches on all kinds of idioms, and you can feel the joy they must have had. Maybe a good starting point for a next meeting.