“The noisiest concert of FIMAV 2011” is an unsurprising press release designation as soon as you take a look at the names behind this document. However, Victoriaville Mai 2011 comprises “spontaneous compositions” that seem to be born from quietness: the set begins with rarefied synthetic signals and small background noises, to end instead in a type of reasonably regimented mayhem where each of the components is given a proper role. A process of nuclear fission observed from safe distance, in a way.

There are at least two factors that prevent the music to cross the borders of utter chaos. Pinhas’ all-encompassing guitar loops are — rather evidently — the main anchor for the whole sonic ship to stay within the waters of harmonic tolerability, whereas the occasional pulsations produced (presumably) by Masami Akita’s electronics throw an ounce of virtual steadiness to distorted heaps, uncontainable oscillations and straying feedbacks. Yet it’s not easy to establish where exactly supreme noise and functional sound meet in the Japanese’s arsenal.

On the other hand, Wolf Eyes are definitely a fundamental addition to this rite of cathartic discharge, perfectly put in plain detail by Nathan Young’s filtered screaming. On the contrary, unobtrusively condensed lumps of sax and guitar collocate a few sections of the improvisation straight into Tranceville, slight echoes of early minimalism crossing the mind as one imagines benign smiles by Terry Riley and Tony Conrad should they ever stumble upon the “calmer” traits of this record. But when the reins are let loose — it happens quite often, especially in the 9 1/2 minutes of the encore — it’s still better to step back a little to avoid the flames.

Twenty years after its modest beginning, the Guelph Jazz Festival (GJF), which this year takes place September 3 to 8, has grown to be one of this country’s major improvised music celebrations. Unlike many other so-called jazz fests which lard their programs with crooners masquerading as jazz singers, tired rock or pop acts, or so-called World or C&W performers who make no pretense of playing jazz, the GJF continues to showcase committed improvisers in sympathetic settings including during the fourth installment of the dusk-to-dawn Nuit Blanche. […]

Outstanding double bass work from closer to home is on tap during a free Market Square afternoon concert that same day when Montréal bassist Jean Félix Mailloux performs his compositions from Bomata Arômes d’allieurs Malasartes mam 016 with his associates, percussionist Patrick Graham and Guillaume Bourque playing clarinet and bass clarinet. A trio which has internalized “scents from elsewhere” — the translation of the CD title, Bomata’s unhurried performances reference various ethnic styles without becoming the subservient to any. A fine instance of this mixing is Cardamome when cross pulses from Graham and second drummer Phillippe Melanson move contrapuntally alongside a walking bass line, providing a trembling rhythm to Bourque’s mid-range, Klezmer-like overlay. The reedman’s mercurial high-note skill is on display on Shaman, with the bass taking on a slinky oud-like resonance and guest frame drummer Ziya Tabassian adding hard thwacks to toughen the beat. Yet as intense as the bassist’s and clarinetist’s improvisations become neither disrupts the basic thematic flow. Pianist Jérôme Beaulieu, who joins Bomata on a couple of tracks, is a little too decorous, creating a crystallite Nordic feel which clashes with Bourque’s ney-like sound on Nuit Blanche. Although with 13 tracks, sameness sets in at points, most performances argue well for the band’s continued evolution from this 2012 CD. Chinoiseries could offer one path, with the arrangement open enough to allow the reedist some altissimo smears even as the theme stays linear, with the end product suggesting both Eastern European concertina-like riffs plus a swinging jazz-like interface. […]

In Ken Kesey’s widely-read One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, the antagonist — the hatchet faced Nurse Ratched — is depicted as a spider, ‘in the centre of her web (of) wires like a watchful robot… with mechanical insect skill, (knowing) every second which wire runs where and just what current to send up to get what she wants…’. Just one letter (and much sadism) removed from this creation, the Ratchet Orchestra resembles a similarly organised regime.

As exercises in man-management go, this chamber jazz band is an ambitious proposition indeed. Having burgeoned from a handful to some 30 Montréal musicians of the first water over the last decade and a half, the logistical and democratic considerations of distributing them evenly over a mere 9 pieces (most of which hover around the 5-minute mark) fries my mental circuits. But the task is ably executed by leader Nicolas Caloia as he provides a showcase for all but preferential treatment to none. As a result of such exacting exigencies, there’s nary a moment wasted by this muscular unit: from careful canter to clattering cacophony, the only sound phenomenon left unexplored is silence, though you’ll probably look into that one once the CD has ended.

Being a big band jazz unit with an unabashed devotion to Sun Ra (they first celebrated his birthday in 1998), their sound will evoke little surprise: loping woodwinds provide a launchpad for the shriller excesses of the horn section; a soaring string section melts in the warm buzz and burble of a mute trumpet while an electric piano takes the stairs; a spidery, skittering fuzz guitar becomes swiftly serrated from climbing too many grass blades — hacks and slices at everything around it. Walt Disney is invoked and banished. Keeping shy of the minute barrier, a roustabout plays the cup & ball game with the words KICK, MAN & HABIT. Everything roars and fades with finality.

Though the musical motifs of Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane and the like are distinctive, this is not to say it’s an exercise in emulation — far from it. That said, if the group’s star-bound curiosity fails to ignite the transcendent inner dimensions of its forbearers, it’s precisely for the reason that it lacks the spiritual discipline: working to a timetable, no one has more than their allotted 5 minutes to shine, both as individuals and team players. The 9 tracks constitute a collection (a very varied one, albeit), rather than a narrative. Thus, the Ratchet Orchestra resolves itself as an exercise in short-term showmanship, in which respect it fulfils its mandate admirably. Appreciate this detail and you’ll walk away the winner.

Joane Hétu’s La Femme territoire ou 21 fragments d’humus is a multi disciplinary piece dedicated to the female experience; sex, death, loss, and the joy of life itself enjoy aural designation on these 21 tracks. Hétu wrings limitless emotion from a myriad of sources with the help of Susanna Hood, Jean Derome, Isaiah Ceccarelli, and Alice Tougas St-Jak. Voice, accordion, woodwinds, and strings interact with field recordings, electronics, and spectral percussion, which in addition to prose and dance add up to a varied and complex work. Every facet of the piece is informed by an avant garde aesthetic as elements of free jazz, musique concrète, and early electronic composition support a vocal narrative that is an intense world of sound unto itself. The vocalists scream, mumble, whisper, and growl (not to mention actually sing), expressing an incredible range of emotion and timbre, even when the words are free of their literal meaning. I do not speak French, so I am missing an entire dimension of this recording, but it’s quite a rich listening experience regardless.

These diverse elements repeatedly coalesce into sublime vignettes, such as on L’amoureuse, which is a tour de force of vocal gymnastics. Male and female voices advance the limits of human ability beginning with broken, sputtering non-language that closely resembles the bushmen’s chatter from The Gods Must Be Crazy. This particular “fragment” alternates between passages of unison recitation and extended vocal and musical techniques before resolving into a dizzying climax of whispering. Fragment amour saunters in like an elephant on roller skates with alien sounds that could be air escaping a balloon or tape manipulation, followed by sensuous breath and arcing, bent saxophone notes. Nue features interesting moments where unison voices strike harmonies with each other and produce chords that eventually waver in and out of pitch. The song eventually falls into a dissonant refrain before returning to more vocal harmonizing. This CD is remarkable in every way, with an exceptional recording capturing some truly remarkable pieces of sound art. Not to be missed.

Fortner Anderson est un poète performer originaire du Midwest américain vivant à Montréal. Un exil qui dure et qui a trouvé plusieurs connexions dont celle avec la bouillonnante scène montréalaise autour des activités du lieu La Casa del Popolo, qui a vu naitre notamment les projets autour du groupe post-rock-progressif Godspeed you! black emperor. Des connexions aussi avec sa scène des musiques électroacoustiques via des collaborations avec Alexandre St-Onge et Sam Shalabi. Quatrième disque à son actif, Annunciations est construit sur un système de “commande”, un peu comme le disque de Thurston Moore Root (lo-recordings, cd/lp, 1999) sur lequel le guitariste convoque trente artistes à remixer des parties guitares créées par Thurston pour l’occasion. La variante ici est que l’on a donné des textes à lire au poète et qui ont ensuite été remis à plusieurs artistes issus principalement des sphères des musiques électroacoustiques au sens large: Ned Bouhalassa, Andy Williamson, Christian Calon, Nicolas Bernier, Martine Crispo, Chantal Dumas, Alessandro Bosetti, Christian Kesten et John Berndt pour en faire bien sur bon usage, dans des créations sonores qui sonnent évidemment poésie sonore et musique électroacoustique. Trois cd encartonnés et un livre (que je n’ai pas eu avec la copie promo et dont je ne peux évidemment moins vous parler). Une présentation à s’y méprendre avec les structures en place telles DAME et Empreintes Digitales. Nous ne sommes malgré tout pas véritablement dans de la poésie sonore telle qu’on l’entend (ne vous attendez pas à du Paul Dutton par exemple), mais plus dans de la lecture, dans le spoken word. Lecture de textes choisis à tendance environnementale et politique. Autour de textes sur les changements climatiques, sur Guantanamo ou encore sur des rapports de missions spatiales, Fortner Anderson a toutefois réinterprété ces textes sous une forme poétique. Surtout sur la pièce de Chantal Dumas, It’s a small world. Celle d’Alessandro Bosetti est plus que surprenante, virant chanson minimale proche de Ghedalia Tazartés ou David Fenech, voire Robert Wyatt. Quand je vous dit surprenant. Dans l’écoute chronologique des trois cds, cette pièce It Is Amazing (C’est surprenant, en français, ndlr) (Gesualdo’s waterboarding) tombe à pic. Et annonce le meilleur cd des trois. Non pas que je m’ennuie, mais pas forcément surpris jusque là. Dû surement aussi au texte pas facile à digérer puisque très pregnant, pour nous non-anglophones. Donc on s’en remet au sonore, qui lui était jusque là un peu formel, sans éclat. Décidément ce troisième cd compile les trois pièces les plus expérimentales, celle de Christian Kesten avec un vrai remix et un travail sur les hésitations et le souffle naturel de Fortner Anderson, qui prend à contre-pied tout le monde, personne n’y ayant pensé jusque là. Pour finir sur une composition plus tendue par John Berndt. Parfois proche du spoken word de Jello Biafra (ex Dead Kennedys) qui a lui aussi travaillé sur Guantanamo sur son disque Jello Biafra & the Guantanamo School of Medicine, voire Henry Rollins. J’ai mis beaucoup de temps à essayer de comprendre ce disque. Pas véritablement facile d’accès pour moi. Bien content malgré tout d’avoir insisté et découvert ce formidable troisième disque.