Marianne Trudel will be in concert with Bill Brennan on July 8, 2008 at Cook Recital Hall, MUN School Of Music (8 pm) as part of the 14th Sound Symposium in St John’ss (Newfoundland and Labrador).

Guido Del Fabbro will be in concert on July 10, 2008 (8 pm) at La Casbah as part of the Festival Off de Québec, in Québec City. He will present a solo version of the pieces on Agrégats et Carré de sable.

… A third Quartetski member, Gordon Allen, followed with his new trio, All Up In There, featuring percussionist Michel F Côté and theremin player Frank Martel. Allen started with a very breathy, noisy sound, leaving lots of space in his line. Côté began with a towel draped over his kit, and even without it he retained a very dry sound, with small crisp cymbals. Martel successfully avoided the sci-fi connotations of the theremin, adding a unique colour to the set, manipulating it to truly engage with Allen. Côté had two condenser mics that he ran through two Pignose amps. When he used them as sticks to amplify his kit, he gave the drums a fuzzy, grungy sound that would not have been out of place on a Tom Waits record. At other times he pointed the mics at each other or at the amps, manipulating the pitch and volume of the feedback almost like a second theremin. In the more aggressive moments, Côté played a somewhat tribal rock beat while Allen elicited noise and feedback sounds out of his trumpet and Martel anchored everything with a deep, ominous theremin bassline. The physical gestures Côté and Martel used to improvise were nearly as important as the sound itself…

… The evening started off with Philippe Lauzier and Pierre-Yves Martel of Quartetski, turntablist Martin Tétreault and Norwegian guitarist Kim Myhr in three quiet and textural improvisations. The set started with Lauzier playing his alto saxophone with a plunger mute affixed on his bell, creating a muffled and distant sound. The blend of Tétreault’s turntables, Myhr’s guitar effects and Martel’s viola da gamba was impressive. It was difficult to determine where the sounds were coming from. Martel, unamplified, would bow furiously, unleashing streams of harmonics, and even thump his bow against the body of the instrument. Myhr and Lauzier used their instruments more as resonators for external objects and vocalizations. Myhr many times moved a spinning toy across the body of his classical guitar, which he alternately played lying flat on his lap or in normal playing position. Lauzier also played bass clarinet, emphasizing the overtones of the instrument, and pulled out a plastic tube through which he circular breathed. At that moment, with Lauzier playing the tube, the whole group combined to sound like a massive vacuum cleaner, or that noisy radiator from down the hall — a sound full of airy noise, feedback and harmonics…

We recently announced dates for Ciné-concerts Jazz with Jean Derome. Well, this time, on July 4, 2008, Robert Marcel Lepage and François Bourassa will improvise on film La Souriante Madame Beudet directed by Germaine Dulac, and on Paris qui dort directed by René Clair. The concert will take place at Cinémathèque québécoise as part of the FIJM.

Guitars reigned supreme at this year’s Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville. The saxophones were there to be sure; Jean Derome, Joe McPhee and Roscoe Mitchell are not ones to sneeze at. But the 25th edition of FIMAV centered on the six-string, with Raymond Boni, Tim Brady, Nick Didkovsky, Fred Frith, René Lussier, Joe Morris, Marc Ribot and Elliott Sharp all on the bill. […]

Sets by the members of the Ambiances Magnétiques collective from Montréal (100 miles southwest of Victoriaville) are always a much anticipated part of the week and this year made for three strong sets: Jean Derome’s Les Dangereux Zhoms revived as a sextet; Michel F Côté’s excellent organ lounge (juste) Claudette and a trio of René Lussier, Martin Tétrault and Otomo Yoshihide. The latter was an especially exciting outburst of two turntables and two guitars ( Yoshihide manning one of each), running from energy to abstraction. Yoshihide was originally set to play just turntables, but arrived with guitar in hand. Perhaps he sensed something about the frenzy of FIMAV 2008.