Grand manitou de la musique expérimentale et d’avant-garde, le prolifique Elliott Sharp nous offre 11 improvisations en compagnie du guitariste Antoine Berthiaume(Rodéoscopique). Ces moments sonores sont parfois hypnotiques, souvent inquiétants et évoluent en intensité. Alors qu’une guitare nous envoûte de son drone incessant, l’autre lui répond par des touches qui égratignent doucement. Rappelant les œuvres industrielles ambiantes qui ont marqué les années 80, ces impros dégagent une certaine noirceur, tout en jouant avec les tensions et des textures sonores parfois sidérales.

Venant à la suite du projet Montreal Sound Matter / Montréal matière sonore (une installation et un disque, en 2006), le projet [Victoriaville matière sonore] reprend l’idée de composer collectivement (mais l’un après l’autre) une espèce de cadavre exquis technologique en utilisant des enregistrements de terrain (le terrain étant ici Victoriaville). Les sons recueillis sont triturés à l’extrême, avec tous les bidouillages imaginables, et le résultat est une tapisserie sonore pas du tout monochrome, mais passant plutôt en dents de scie de la transe au bruitisme et du réalisme à l’abstraction. Enregistré en concert au 24^e FIMAV en 2007; avec Chantal Dumas, a_dontigny, Steve Heimbecker, Louis Dufort, Mathieu Lévesque, Hélène Prévost, Tomas Phillips et Francisco López.

While on tour, your typical band generally adheres to the following template: play show, drink to excess, sleep, talks to fans, more drinks, hides from fanatics bearing demos, repeat. However, ever the busy-bodies, Sébastien Cirotteau (field recordings, manipulation), Brigitte Lacasse (piano, accordion), Catherine S Massicotte (violin, “motors”) and Éric Normand (bass, loudspeaker, percussion, voice) chose to spend their down time between gigs in pursuit of source material for an album.

Divided into two works (Partie un, Partie deux), this “Polaroid of the Saint Lawrence River” is the result of the quartet’s meanderings, ambience collection (see the cover for the most outrageous microphone in existence) and attempt to interpret the otherwise soul of, as Native Americans named it, “the river that walks” during a tour of locations near the tributary. The crew begins with a deliberate prelude of low-register piano, snare smacks, metallic pings, alarm bells, a somber violin melody, bird calls and waterfall snippets before boarding a gentle boat ride at the four-minute mark: waves lap, wood creeks and (presumably) the captain remarks about the ride (warning the passengers of potential capsizing, at one point). Off in the distance, a ringing church bell cues casual violin fragments, and one by one the group accompanies the dictation. Arriving on the shore and finding construction and big city rumblings, Lacasse and Massicotte adapt with a bustling accordion/violin duet as the “traffic noise” transforms into a supple, pitched drone. Suddenly, we’re back at the beach: a sampled sand march sets a pulse as Lacasse revisits her piano, feverishly arpeggiating, while Normand bangs on whatever he can find until a niente. Though sonically fiercer at some points, Partie deux is similar — and just as alluring — in its aesthetic construction: a number of juxtaposed vocal conversations and musical narrations, elide, skirmish and crash; the piece folds like a palindrome and offers a few minutes of peaceful, beachside sea surf. As the tide recedes, the quartet slinks into a cabalistic witch’s brew, a curious coda rife with extended vocal techniques (i.e. operatic grunts, barely-attained high note screeches, growls, a chest-bursting howl scarily reminiscent of Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s on Goin’ Down), mellifluous bass chords and echoes of the melody heard 43 minutes ago.

As you might notice, this disc is not a haphazard mélange of lazy, point-record-print field recordings where the nature of the objects trumps musicality — nor is it a complete man-made digital divorce of the source from its inherent qualities and associations. The artists took care when balancing these two extremes with the most intriguing aspect of the pieces: their own mingled performances. Face à la dérive is evidence that the best documentaries are even better when they feature the documentarian(s).

Here, Ottawa-based bassist and composer John Geggie is joined by drummer Nick Fraser and Marilyn Crispell on a set of 14 compositions recorded in November 2006. The pieces, most of which are collaborative efforts of the three musicians, ring with a dark-tinged authority that does not eschew playfulness and the joy of discovery. From the fractured walking bass line accented by progressively more dissonant note clusters from Crispell that breaks into a game of musical hide-and-seek on Run-Away Sheep, to Geggie’s arco line that weaves in and out of Crispell’s undulating four-note figure, and Fraser’s expressive stick work on View From the Bridge, this is music that is dedicated to a high level of group interaction while scrupulously avoiding cliché — definitely worthy of attention.

Apparemment enregistré en concert en Europe, le programme reproduit ici présente un «portrait sonore du fleuve Saint-Laurent», dans un style qui n’est pas sans évoquer Le Trésor de la langue de René Lussier ou l’ambiance brumeuse des symphonies portuaires. Road movie pour les oreilles, ce «portrait» tient davantage de la dérive situationniste, sans véritable destination, que du voyage à proprement parler. Des enregistrements d’ambiances sonores et de brefs intermèdes musicaux plus ou moins abstraits se glissent entre les propos de riverains rencontrés tout au long de la route; le tout forme un cinéma sonore très suggestif, qui coule dans l’oreille comme un long film tranquille.