A great album for lovers of the electric guitar. It should appeal for instance to fans of mister Fripp. There are already out a great many records from canadian Tim Brady. Most of them cover Brady as a composer. Go is his first solo-album and focuses on Brady as a guitar player. It’s an album that I instantly liked. We hear rich and multi-layered patterns, all generated by the guitars and electronic devices of Tim Brady. The feeling of blues, (hard) rock, jazz is always nearby, but most of the compositions are situated on a higher abstract level. The compositions range from quiet soundscaping like in Le Chant des baleines, to very loud heavy metal like excursions like in Vampyr!. All is done very intelligently and with great affection. The first four compositions are by Brady himself, and reworkings of pieces he composed in the 80s. The other four are works by four different composers: Jean-François Laporte, Alexandre Burton, Tristan Murail, Laurence Crane. 3 tracks were recorded live, the others in the studio. But the sound quality is very homogeneous. Brady leads us through a variety of atmospheres and musical idioms, ending up in Bobby J, a pastoral and elegant finale to this very enjoyable CD.

Two canadian guitar improvisors joined hands once again. As a duo they play since 1995 and in 2000 it was time for their first duo-recording for Ambiances Magnétiques. Arthur Bull is a veteran from the canadian improv scene and played with Michael Snow, Paul Dutton, John Oswald, etc. As a poet he published three books. Heïkalo is an improvisor and composer. He also runs his own label: Heïkalo Sound Productions. Having a look in this catalogue learns that Heïkalo released many solo-albums that show his interest in a diversity of strings instruments and also in electroacoustic music. This label released also the second duo-recording of Bull and Heïkalo. So with Concentrés et amalgames were are listening to their third collaboration. Bull plays electric and prepared guitars and e-bow. Heïkalo we hear on acoustic and classical guitars, but also on drums and percussion. The album features six guitar duets and five duets for guitar and percussion. In their playing they show a great togetherness that results in great music. Improvised music at its best. Both gentlemen speak their language of free form and non-idiomatic improvising very well and give way here to some very communicative and musical interaction in the classical Derek Bailey-style.

Sextant is the second cd by this Italian composer and improvisor for Ambiances Magnétiques. In 2003 he recorded a cd of improvised duets with Joëlle Léandre. Now he returns with a totally different multifaceted album of nine compositions for a small ensemble. They originated from workshops given by this italian pianist at Nino Rota Conservatory in Monopoli, where he worked with new teaching methodologies. Most compositions are by the hand of Gianni Lenoci himself who graduated from Santa Cecilia Conservatory in Rome and studied improvised music with Mal Waldron and Paul Bley. They are performed by: Adolfo Lavolpe (electric guitar, electronics), Fabrizio Scarafile (soprano saxophone), Francesco Massaro (alto & baritone sax), Francesco Angiuli (doublebass), Marcello Magliocchie (drums) plus Gianni Lenoci himself on (electric) piano, synthesizer and electronics. In the centre of this cd however we hear a work by Morton Feldman: intermissionVI. A piece very close to silence. Tense and breakable. It is as if we are in the centre of a hurricane with this meditative piece, as most other pieces before and after are much more loud, jazzier, etc. intermissionVI is preceded by rothkovariations a piece that is about sound and texture with lots of electronics, plus piano and reeds. The second piece of this album intersezione and the last track of this album notturno frattale are both very otherworldly electronic-only pieces, that are absolutely non-jazz. Most other pieces are very free jazz like works that share similarities with the music of Ornette Coleman of Shannon Jackson. They catch attention most of all because of the very strange combination of odd electronic sounds combined with saxes, drums, etc., like in the opening track or in the title track. The works differ enormously in style and character. I wonder what the underlying musically unifying concept is for this album, if there is any. But of course there is nothing wrong with showing very different faces.

L’auteure D Kimm et le guitariste Bernard Falaise ont concocté un album d’atmosphère où la musique fusionne à la parole, de la même façon que s’amalgament les individualités dans un couple. D. Kimm signe la plupart des textes et Falaise, la majorité des musiques. Avec poésie, D. Kimm sait parler de façon franche de nos travers amoureux qui oscillent entre le désir et la soumission, le fantasme et le réel. Bernard Falaise appuie les textes sans les écraser de musique rock au bruitisme éthéré. Un disque réussi. 4/5

Le jeune guitariste québécois, que l’on a pu découvrir en 2003 dans ses duos avec Derek Bailey et Fred Frith, offre deux nouveaux albums, peut-être moins défricheurs que ne le furent Soshin et Leaves and Snows. Le premier est clairement dans la tradition du trio jazz guitare-basse-batterie. Le second est une nouvelle rencontre de guitares, qui s’est déroulée à Kobe au Japon en 2005 avec Takumi Seino. Accompagné d’un vétéran à la contrebasse (Michel Donato) et à la batterie par Pierre Tanguay, Antoine Berthiaume surprendra en effet ceux qui l’ont découvert au travers des deux premiers enregistrements sur Ambiances Magnétiques ou sur l’album paru chez Incus. Ici, la pure tradition d’un jazz pratiqué dans les bars (attention, le titre est en fait un jeu de mot, puisque dédié à une chorégraphe du nom de Ellen Bar) est la marque d’un parcours personnel dans l’histoire du jazz (sa pièce en soliste dans l’autre album en est aussi un indice) parfaitement maîtrisé et la fluidité de son jeu est parfaitement épaulée par la section rhytmique qui, volontairement, ne sort pas de ce côté. ARC — beneath the surface est plus intéressant, dans la mesure où la confrontation se fait entre un jeune musicien nourri aux influences déterminantes de l’avant-garde et un maître de la guitare jazz japonaise peut-être un peu plus conventionnelle qui ici se laisse aller à l’expérimentation. Cette diversité d’approche — clairement répérable car chaque musicien se voit attribué une piste précise — est occasionnellement brouillée: chacun adoptant des phrasés parfois conventionnels, particulièrement dans les pièces solistes, des effets divers, des attitudes plus expérimentales. La longue suite éponyme (près de 22 minutes) témoigne le plus de ce parcours erratique entre styles: tantôt planantes (on pense un court moment à du Manuel Göttsching), tantôt plus bruitistes, les guitares virevoltent et confrontent leurs expériences.

Cet album est le troisième enregistrement du duo formé par Arthur Bull et Daniel Heïkalo. Leur collaboration donne lieu à des improvisations renversantes. Les deux guitaristes partagent une même spontaneité et livrent des musiques à la fois intrigantes et déstabilisantes. Leurs amalgames de guitares et de percussions sont d’une maturité et d’une fraîcheur remarquables. Cet album intelligent s’adresse aux connaisseurs comme aux néophytes.