In a city called Montréal, a group of men and women chose to invent ways to live their lives, to make their music and to make their records. All lived according to their creative convictions and a life style that resembled them and inexorably moved them toward each other. One day, inevitably, they met and recognized each other. First of all
Vivid music, concert music, parade music, film music, improvised music, pop music, theatrical music, rhythm music, playful music, music that is sung, yelled, spoken, synthetic music, acoustic music, electric music, vernacular music, folk, rock, jazz and sound effects combined.
The foundations of the house were built in 1984 without plans, without instructions, without contractors. Risky business
The production of vinyl records went well and the house grew. Les Poules, Les 4 Guitaristes de l’Apocalypso Bar, La traversée de la mémoire morte, Bruire. Very quickly, ties were made with European New Music distribution networks. Recommended Records is the most famous of these and the one who was most influencial in the shaping of the future and development of Ambiances Magnétiques.
René Lussier gave the blow. It was final and radical. After Le trésor de la langue, no more vinyls were produced at Ambiances Magnétiques. The current of the CD was too strong. Impossible to resist. Goodbye vinyl. Goodbye record cover, designed with so much love, care and attention. Hello compact discs, hello new cover design. With the CD came other transformations at Ambiances Magnétiques, new collaborations and new projects. Robert Langlois at Studio 270 had such an intelligent grasp of the new musical language that he brought a garantee of the quality of sound engineering and mixing. The genius of Jean-François Denis and DIFFUSION i MéDIA significantly lightened the process of record-making. The arrival of graphic artists Luc Beauchemin, Fabrizio Gilardino and Anna Morelli brought a constance and a unifying quality to the design of record inserts and booklets.
At this point, “The house built without” was starting to feel the need for a contractor. Work was never scarce
The house filled with more and more records and friends and some new labels
Idea music, immediate music, meeting music, heterodox music, approximate music, recycled music, dance music, superimposed music, tubulence, poetry, onomatopoeia, tracing, pick-up, boiling music, rough draft, mathematics, pataphysics, minimalist music, maximalist music, orchestrated dissonance, anarchistic music, chaotic music.
The original groups have transformed themselves
Today in Québec, Ambiances Magnétiques and DAME have become 2 of the very few supporters of the distribution of self-produced New Music CDs. We still jealously stick to our desire for this very vivid, iconoclastic and independant music. The musicians of Ambiances Magnétiques have matured their language, reinforced their opinions and deepened their research. All have kept their conviction that their music has its sense, its fonction, its beauty, its goodness, its truth.
Polymorphic music, scholarly music and oral tradition, deconstructed and reconstructed music, post-modern and hybrid music, emergencies, break-ups and make-ups, raw music, art song and split music, textures, mosaics, crossbreeding, committed music, proletarian music, changing music, hubbub, music in the eclectic labyrinth.
Although New Music is sometimes still laughed at, sulked at and ignored, its creators still create it because it seems a necessity to them. Necessity of a lining language enriched with all possible crossbreedings and all available materials, necessity of all developing languages ceaselessly trying to transform and adapt to themutations of the imagination and the understanding of the living.
The artists at Ambiances Magnétiques and DAME pursue their dream of giving themselves a better chance of remaining free and independant, responsable and committed to today’s music.
Be Alert, Stay Alive
— Danielle Palardy Roger, 1996
If life was but a fairytale, the combined efforts of the founding members of Ambiances Magnétiques would have suffice to impose what is now known as musique actuelle as a commercially viable form of music research. The artists choosing it as their reason to create would not be ostracized by the media, ignored by festivals and left out by record stores. Their productions would be listened to and appreciated by a growing audience (not that they would take over the airwaves, but still…), and supported by the provincial and federal governments, through financial help and broadcasting. And they would live happily ever after.
That’s not how it went. Right now, the artists from the “musique actuelle” scene have to create in the face of the media, the governments and the apathy of an audience conditioned by the pre-chewed music saturating the airwaves. Yet, despite the situation, there is hope. First of all, Ambiances Magnétiques is still around, tall and proud, and releasing regularly one thought-provoking, enrapturing album after another. Second, the audience for this kind of music actually IS growing. It can be witnessed at concerts and events, but also through the numerous other small record labels that have been mushrooming around, in Montréal and elsewhere, and release forms of music that resolutely stay away from the mainstream (even the alternative one). It can also be witnessed in this rising generation of artists who identify this and that first “magnetisers” as influences.
And that is why, between 1997 and 2004, the entity known as Ambiances Magnétiques found itself at a crossroads
Ambiances Magnétiques was incepted by a nucleus of artists who shared a desire to unite against adversity — “Together we stand
In answer to that, the doors began to open between 1997 and 2000, first for names that were already familiar to followers of the label’s releases — musicians often heard alongside members of the collective, the electrons circling the nucleus. The names of Pierre Tanguay, Tom Walsh, Pierre Cartier and Normand Guilbeault found their way on the spines of Ambiances Magnétiques CDs. Some of these projects were deeply personal (Midi tapant, La musique de mon disque), while others were large-scale extravaganzas (Chansons de Douve, Riel
Simultaneously to this first “expansion” wave, surely the most obvious or at least the most immediate, new musicians started to appear. Some had recently arrived in Montréal, others were friends from abroad
The latter outfit would mark the apex of a current of music research and the beginning of a new era for Ambiances Magnétiques. The label’s very first releases had shown, alongside an astounding dose of creativity, great levels of childlike imagination, even humor, accompanied by a genuine love for angular rock deconstruction. Shared in the ‘80s by labels like Cuneiform, ReR Megacorp, Rec Rec and No Man’s Land, this conception of avant-garde music was gradually supplanted by noise-oriented trends and what would eventually be called electro-acoustic improvisation.
Diane Labrosse, Ikue Mori and Martin Tétreault’s Île bizarre, Lussier and Tétreault’s Dur Noyau Dur, along with Lussier’s Solos de guitare électrique are all major efforts in that new direction, but the album that will have the biggest impact and will put Ambiances Magnétiques back on the international map is Klaxon Gueule’s Muets, released in 1999. This album also repositioned the label among the new musical currents of Montréal, since the group’s bassist, Alexandre St-Onge would soon become one of the metropolis’ most daring creators. He will make the first contacts with the experimental underground network developing in anglophone circles, booming at that time and spearheaded by the group Godspeed You Black Emperor
If some of these albums destabilized (or even worried) certain long-time Ambiances Magnétiques supporters, they illustrate a vibrant desire to continue the search for new sounds and to defy previous molds and expectations. And during that period (1997-2000), listeners were still able to experience the original festive spirit of the label in Papa Boa’s first CD, the Orkestre des pas perdus and Castor et compagnie’s second albums, Côté’s Compil zouave and Lepage’s Les clarinettes ont-elles un escalier de secours
The new millennium kicked off with a celebration
Meanwhile, Ambiances Magnétiques’ own family is growing. There once was a time when the nucleus of the collective was responsible for almost all of the albums released on the imprint, but now newcomers are given increasing room. In 2002, only 5 out of 11 releases can be credited to members of the collective
Joining the ranks alongside the new generation are accomplished creators
Throughout this activity, the pioneers of the label release some of their most mature works. It’s the Trio Derome Guilbeault Tanguay’s 10 Compositions, Nous perçons les oreilles’ La vie c’est simple, Joane Hétu’s Musique d’hiver, Diane Labrosse and Martin Tétreault’s Parasites. The latter duo and the freshly reactivated Les Poules perform in Europe and the US, garnering much critical acclaim, while Jean Derome records for CIMP, Diane Labrosse for No Type, and Martin Tétreault pops up everywhere (Audiosphere, Vand’œuvre, Ersthwhile, Textile, etc.), reaching out new audiences.
It is June 2004 and Ambiances Magnétiques has just released Canevas “+” by the Ensemble SuperMusique (ESM). A selection of compositions and improvisations covering a wide scope of aesthetics and techniques, this album seems to be building a bridge to another collective album, that one released in 1992
— François Couture, 2004