The Quintette Mont-Royal formed by Marie-Julie Chagnon (clarinets), Marie-Hélène Breault (flutes), Catherine Meunier (marimba), Pierre-Yves Martel (doublebass) and Shawn Mativetsky (percussion) will present a concert on Wednesday August 22, 2007 as part of the Festival International du Domaine Forget’s Rencontres de Musique Nouvelle en Charlevoix series, in Saint-Irénée.

The A in A_dontigny stands for Aimé, and he is a free noise composer from Canada. His name may ring a bell or two for his involvement in Napalm Jazz (not reviewed in Vital Weekly), morceaux_de_machines (see Vital Weekly 338 and 454), or his duet CD with Diane Labrosse (see Vital Weekly 384). Quite a busy man, but he never made a solo recording and Geisteswissenschaften is his first solo excursion. He gets help from various people on guitar, cello and bass, but by and large it’s a solo work indeed. What exactly A_dontigny plays himself then? That is perhaps a bit harder to answer, but perhaps it’s safe to say that it’s a multitude of precorded sources — meaning vinyl, CDs, mini discs, computer files of existing material that he treats through further computer processing, electronic effects and such like. He may add highly fucked up rhythm machines and/or samplers of any kind, but the end result is quite a fascinating journey through the world of today: we zap around, on TV, on the net, and we get a true bombardment of sound and images — here only sound. A world that would drive a lot of people crazy, or in fact it perhaps already did. Much better it would be to sit down and enjoy A_dontigny’s release. Turn off the TV, switch of computers and let yourself sink back in this crazy world that is madness enough for those who really want to listen. A_dontigny crosses the world with crazy sounds, and an interesting mixture of techniques to approach the world: musique concrète like, noise based and improvised in playing. It all can be done. If the previous releases by morceaux_de_machines were something you liked, then this new release by one half will appeal to you too: it’s by no means half as good; it easily matches the duo.

The young Malasartes Musique label, is an initiative by Damian Nisenson, a composer and saxophonist from Argentina who settled down in Canada some years ago. The second release was a CD by a trio of Jean Félix Mailloux, called Aurores boréales. Mailloux now returns again in trio format with Cordâme. Himself playing doublebass, the trio is completed by Marie Neige Lavigne on violin and Julie-Odile Gauthier-Morin on cello. Pierre Tanguay helps out on percussion, plus Guillaume Bourque on clarinet on Au bord du Nil and Anit Ghosh on viola on Eider. All compositions and arrangements are again from Mailloux. In many tracks there are influences of folk music to be traced, especially from the middle east as title as Au bord du Nil and Valse hébraique suggest. Some of the compositions lack a own face and are a bit stereotype, others however are very good. The musicians give a dedicated and warm interpretation of the pieces. Similar in mood and atmosphere is the music on L’autre. At work is now a quartet of Jean-Marc Hébert (electric guitar), accompanied by Christophe Papadimitriou (bass), Pierre Tanguay (drums, percussion) and Marie-Soleil Bélanger (violin, ehru). All compositions come from Hébert, who studied guitar and composition in Toronto. With his group Skalène he already released three CDs. Also he participated in a project with Indian musicians. Like in the compositions of Mailloux we hear influences from other parts of the world, but, again like by Mailloux, the music breaths an unmistakably francophone atmosphere. This is due to their lyric and sensual approach Melancholy comes from the ehru, a chinese violin, played by Bélanger. We first heard this instrument on the duet cd of Bélanger and Normand Guilbeault, reviewed earlier for Vital Weekly. The playing of Hébert is sober but effective, and reminds sometimes of Antoine Bethiaume. Both Mailloux and Hébert make no drastic maneuveurs as composers. They are not into avant garde, rather they are engaged in an intelligent play with of all kind of influences in a music that always remains very accessible and enjoyable without becoming ‘easy’.

The Trio Damian Nisenson — with {nbio:nisenson_da} playing saxophone, Jean Félix Mailloux, doublebass, and Isaiah Ceccarelli, drums — will be at Pharaon Lounge, in the Old Montréal, on Saturday July 21, 2007. You can listen to some online audio clips of Muzika.

Following the performance of Biber’s Passacagliaby by baroque violonist Linda Melsted, Lori Freedman will carry the visionary spirit of Biber into her own contemporary improvisations, joined by dancer/improviser Julia Sasso. The “Biber RePass” event takes place as part of the Toronto Music Garden 2007 series of the Harbourfront Centre, on August 9, 2007 in Toronto.

The Trio Sowari (Burkhard Beins, Bertrand Denzler and Phil Durrant) will be in concert on July 21, 2007 as part of the 22nd NPAI Festival in Parthenay (France). The following week, Bertrand Denzler will be with ensemble Hubbub (Frédéric Blondy, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Jean-Sébastien Mariage, Edward Perraud), on August 4, for a performance programmed in the Jazz em Agosto festival, in Lisbon (Portugal). You can listen to some online audio clips of Asymétries on which he plays with clarinettist Hans Koch. A great CD praised by the press (details on CD’s web page.