The three musicians involved in this trio have known each other for a long time, but this CD is the result of a very new collaborative project. Recorded in a California studio, this CD is also the singular result of spontaneous, real-time sound processing. Only a listen will demonstrate the breadth of this sturdy musical exchange between three excellent musicians, virtuosic with listening and improvisation, and a rogue recording engineer. Fred Frith has invented his own way to improvise. Since his first solo guitar recording in 1974, he has been perceived like a radical innovator of great talent. On the course of 30 years, he has been working around the world with famous artists who are equally interested in similar creative processes. Composer and saxophone player Jean Derome, and percussionist Pierre Tanguay, are two of these artists. Derome and Tanguay have played together in a myriad of projects since 1980. Based upon intuitive communication, the result of a long friendship, Jean Derome and Pierre Tanguay continually establish a joyous ambience, blooming with precision and freedom. As for the recording and mixing engineer, Myles Boisen, he shows himself to be both sensitive and audacious. The meeting of Frith, Derome and Tanguay, three highly experienced musicians, with Boisen produces nothing less than explosive psychedelic music. Real-time processing is a fundamental asset here, as the new sound matter it brings forward have a radical effect on the perception of music.

While Brady’s three previous Ambiances Magnétiques releases were all focused more on his work as a composer, GO [Guitar Obsession] brings the guitar back to centre stage, making it clear why Guitar Player Magazine has named the Montréal-based composer and musician “one of the 30 most important guitarists for the future of the instrument”. The goal of the CD was to create a recording focused primarily on Brady’s guitar playing and composing, rather than on complex studio technology. Overdubbing, looping and computer processing were part of the production process, but they always take a back seat to the sound and texture of a solo guitar performance.

On this disc soloist Lori Freedman presents thirteen new improvised pieces for soprano and bass clarinets that were recorded at Radio-Canada’s Studio 12 in the spring of 2002. Imposing an unbridled rhythm on her clarinets, this alchemist-musician invites us into a surprising world in which the music is allowed to develop on its own, vibrant and captivating. Propelling, in the fervor of the moment — a very exact moment — music that abounds in textures both complex and refined, she constructs a non-linear sound universe that is very close to the bizarre revelations traveled in dreams, furiously original, studded with frenzied, fleeting flashes.

Inspired by jazz standards, Pierre Cartier tackles the theme of love. With all the lyricism such a quest deserves, he combines the voice of Quebec’s poets with the energy of new jazz. […] I caught Pierre Cartier’s ensemble performing this music on two occasions, once at Guelph and more recently at the Victo Fest. I liked it the first time, but found it even better the second time around. I was pleasantly surprised to hear Mr. Cartier singing on all of these pieces, something I didn’t know he did, after hearing him play some great electric jazz bass with Jean Derome in the past. For this disc, he has put together a truly fine Canadian sextet, all either leaders or at least great veteran players on their own. It is a unique frontline with alto sax or flute, trombone, viola and electric guitar with Cartier’s charming voice at the center. There is something quite lovely, melancholy and touching about the sound of Cartier’s voice, as well as the music surrounding his voice. Although I only know a small amount of French, there is still a universal feeling that reverberates at the center of these songs. What stands out is the various solos from Jean Derome (alto sax), Tom Walsh (trombone), Jean Rene (viola) and Bernard Falaise (guitar), that are an extension of the feeling generated within each song. It is the most lyrical playing I’ve heard these men, who are often associated with more “progressive” types of music. At times, the arrangements are quite crafty and rather progressive in more subtle ways. No doubt that some folks will complain of having to listen to Cartier’s most affective and often forlorn voice, yet I find that it often rings true and touches something quite human in all of us who can still be moved by the sound of the human voice reaching inside and touching our hearts. Whenever I get close to cringing at the occasional corniness, one of those cats takes a solo that makes me smile and feel good to be alive.

A major opus in Reich’s body of work, Different Trains pioneered in 1968 a new form of composition developed from his earlier tape pieces It’s Gonna Rain (1965) and Come Out (1966). The work consists of a prerecorded tape assembled from the voices of various people reminiscing about the Holocaust, sounds of American and European trains from the ‘30s and ‘40s, and three different string quartets. In addition to the tape is a fourth string quartet part for a live quartet. Quatuor Bozzini decided to offer a new reading of the work, including its very own recording of the three taped string quartets, a first ever since the premiere 1988 recording of the work, by the Kronos Quartet. Quatuor Bozzini embarked on this new reading after being advised to do so by Steve Reich himself. Quatuor Bozzini’s Different Trains turns a new page in the history of contemporary music. It provides a new landmark. A new must-have for you to discover.

Sextant — the second release by Gianni Lenoci on Ambiances Magnétiques — was born out of the new teaching methodologies’ workshops given by the Italian pianist at Nino Rota Conservatory in Monopoli. Lenoci’s experiments cover a large musical territory in which jazz draws inspiration from contemporary music. Acoustic and electronic instruments meet in harmony to form a highly dynamic whole. Here is how the artist explains his approach: “For years now, my main focus has been to try to create music that is not ‘contaminated’ but rather ‘informed’ and intelligent. Multiple and multifaceted music, yet coherent music nonetheless. Organic music made with gestures shedding light on the unclassifiable areas of language.”