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Review

Ben Harper, Boring Like A Drill, February 6, 2023
Monday, February 13, 2023 Press

Nearly twelve years ago I was in the audience for Rhodri Davies giving the first performance of Éliane Radigue’s Occam I for prepared harp, little suspecting the proliferation of acoustic pieces that would follow in the series. I’ve blown hot and cold on them ever since that equivocal premiere, having heard various Occam iterations for solo, duo and larger groups which I found either intriguing, technically interesting or just rote. Occam Delta XV, composed for the Quatuor Bozzini in 2018, is the first Radigue piece that’s got me really enthused since hearing her Naldjorlak trilogy at that same gig so many years ago. While Naldjorlak creates awe through its sublime, immaculate surface, Occam Delta XV is far more turbulent. The drones that make up Radigue’s compositions have always been in constant motion, but this string quartet draws on an inherent complexity in the material seldom heard since she abandoned the use of analog synthesiser. A lot of that can be attributed to Quatuor Bozzini, too. Radigue taught them the piece orally and their peculiar quality of playing — making music sound both very new and very old all at once — comes to the fore here. Two performances are presented here, recorded live on consecutive nights in late 2021. It’s a piece that depends on communication and mutual feedback between the four musicians to guide its progress, and so the two versions vary greatly, with each sounding more like a studio creation than a live gig. In the first, variations in the bowing produce a handwoven, folk-like aspect to the music, stretched and suspended into watery, wavering overtones like a Canterbury hippie’s pastoral reverie. Pitch material varies over the course of the piece, thickening into a dense passage of multiphonics while transforming further and further away from its tonal origins. From the second night, things are calmer but darker, thinning out into wisps of harmonics before ultimately resolving in more conventional fashion. I wonder if other quartets could produce astonishing results from this piece, but I suspect they would be very different from the Bozzini.

A lot of that can be attributed to Quatuor Bozzini, too. Radigue taught them the piece orally and their peculiar quality of playing — making music sound both very new and very old all at once — comes to the fore here.

Review

Peter Margasak, The Wire, no. 469, March 1, 2023
Monday, February 13, 2023 Press
Over the years Quatuor Bozzini have developed a sterling reputation for their ability to bring astonishing rigour and precision to the thorniest, most exploratory work — whether dazzling quartets of Wandelweiser mainstay Jürg Frey or the psychoacoustic experiments of Alvin Lucier, with many stops in between — and the multifaceted sound world they produce here is as glorious and rich as anything in the group’s vast repertoire.

Review

Fiona Maddocks, The Guardian, January 28, 2023
Monday, February 13, 2023 Press

For her ongoing series Occam Delta, the French composer Éliane Radigue (b.1932) has collaborated with various performers, marking her shift, this century, from mainly electronic works to music for acoustic instruments. Occam Delta XV (Actuelle) is dedicated to Quatuor Bozzini, who premiered it in Montréal in 2018. Radigue’s music is about constant flux: sounds that appear unchanging yet shift almost imperceptibly. The business of listening is part meditation, part heightened concentration, or “hyperconsciousness”, as the liner note explains it. Out of long, sustained chords, a whirr of microtones and harmonics eventually become audible. The process offers a powerful antidote to our short-attention-span world, if you can take it. Switch your phone off and spot the difference between two different versions, performed live and played with dedication by the Bozzinis.

The process offers a powerful antidote to our short-attention-span world…

Review

Raul da Gama, The WholeNote, no. 28:4, February 1, 2023
Friday, February 10, 2023 Press
Bravo to both for this visionary music.

Critique

Philippe Renaud, Le Devoir, February 3, 2023
Sunday, February 5, 2023 Press

Le projet est, à notre connaissance, unique au monde: Growlers Choir, un chœur québécois formé de chanteurs et de chanteuses issus de la grande famille du métal extrême — black métal pour Yves Godbout de Within Anguish, métal viking et symphonique pour Corinne Cardinal et Maude Théberge de Valfreya, etc. Sous la direction du compositeur et artiste sonore Pierre-Luc Senécal, les Growlers ont hurlé, grogné, toussé même, sur une scène du FIMAV en 2021, qui en édite aujourd’hui la fascinante captation. Les deux longues œuvres phares, The Dayking (sur le thème de la lutte des classes, version fantastique, narrée par le poète Fortner Anderson) et Hate Machine, lient la démarche du groupe à ses origines métal, les décharges de batterie et les motifs de guitares présentés dans leur plus simple expression pour laisser toute la place aux voix. Plus captivants encore sont les trois mouvements de l’avant-gardiste Hydra, qui permettent à Senécal d’exploiter toute la richesse texturale, bruitiste et rythmique de ces voix athlétiques et hors du commun.

… toute la richesse texturale, bruitiste et rythmique de ces voix athlétiques et hors du commun.