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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.

Critique

Gérard Condé, Diapason, December 1, 2022
Wednesday, January 18, 2023 Press
Formation québécoise partiellement dédicataire de ces partitions, le Quatuor Bozzini en fait valoir l’objectivité par une intonation impeccable et une rythmique de bronze sans oublier qu’il n’est pas un synthétiseur mais la réunion de quatre musiciens.

Review

Raul da Gama, The WholeNote, no. 28:3, December 13, 2022
Friday, December 23, 2022 Press

Brûlez les meubles (a name that translates to Burn the Furniture) suggests a doffing of the proverbial hat more towards the kind of existentialism and Jean-Paul Sartre’s primary idea that people, as humans, are “condemned to be free.” This may seem to be at cross purposes with the kind of Impressionism that has come to be associated with — perhaps even the clarion call of — many contemporary musicians.

The consistent use of distortion — not simply harmonic dissonance — suggests that these two musicians are flying more than the flag of Impressionism that became associated with many who are influenced by Debussy.

The duo Brûlez les meubles — guitarist Louis Beaudoin-de la Sablonnière and bassist Éric Normand — claim that they owe as much to Jim Hall as they do Bill Frisell. But that tells only part of their story. The real proof of their musicianship lies in the effect that the repertoire […] under review has on the senses.

Listening to Tardif (which means Late) it would seem that songs such as Balade stoïque and Journée pédagogique are indicative that the musicians want us to listen for a deeper meaning in their music. The aforementioned distortion is not simply a musical gesture that frequently runs through this music, but a device to provoke putting a keener ear to work, to listening more deeply to this music.

The duo’s free association with noise together with saxophonist Jean Derome and the arrhythmia of principal guest John Hollenbeck’s drumming sends a powerful musical message. When we get through the repertoire of Tardif and come to the recording’s climactic conclusion J’en ai connu d’autres we find ourselves wondering if the sense of alienation — or otherness — is not what really propels the musical intention of Brûlez les meubles.

The duo’s free association with noise together with saxophonist Jean Derome and the arrhythmia of principal guest John Hollenbeck’s drumming sends a powerful musical message.