All four volumes that we describes here, are released in a special cardbord CD-box, with a well documented booklet that gives full information about the artists. All volumes are compilation CD’s that gives access to various sorts of music. It is almost impossible to review each participant to these compilation CD’s. Thanks to the wide variety of music, yet almost every song comes from the same meltingpot of experimental music.

Volume 1, La bastringue migratoire — Brings us most intimate music that goes from poetic folk towards big-city café music & jazz. With in between artistic experiments with musical instruments that creates big jams. The royal use of the instruments clarinet and saxophone, almost present in every song, gives a jazzy-tune to the CD’s.

After 12 years of existence and 39 records produced, the seminal Montréal new music label Ambiances Magnétiques felt the need to release its first compilation album, Volume 1: La bastringue migratoire. This retrospective CD came out as the label’s main artists (René Lussier, Jean Derome, Joane Hétu and Martin Tétreault, mostly) were about to change their musical approach. After 1996, the bulk of the label’s production will shift from deconstructed rock idioms where humor often plays a central role (Les Granules, Justine, André Duchesne, Jerry Snell}) to introverted free improvisation. So La bastringue migratoire came at the right time, summarizing the label’s pre-1996 sound. All tracks are taken from albums already published — no unreleased material — and thus this CD offers nothing new to the dedicated fan, but the “musique actuelle” neophyte will find it a helpful sampler. Every major act on the label is represented: René Lussier (thrice if one counts the track by his duo Les Granules), Jean Derome, Martin Tétreault, Justine, Évidence, Bruire and André Duchesne, plus a few lesser-known artists such as Geneviève Letarte and Jerry Snell. The booklet includes presentations of every artist on Ambiances Magnétiques.

The compilation disc La bastringue migratoire makes for a good initiation to the Ambiances magnétiques label. About a dozen artists are represented here and, though hard to classify, their music is essentially tropes on a basic theme of “art jazz”. Some approaches are fairly conventional, like Evidence’s interpretation of Thelonious Monk’s Criss Cross, while others, such as Robert Lepage’s comic-strip-inspired clarinet ditty Le sourire de la Joconde, are admittedly bizarre. Some tracks are gentle, as in Michel Côté and Diane Labrosse’s Y tu mirar, while others are brash, like Jerry Snell’s Life in the Suicide Riots. Musical influences present on the disc range from DJ culture in Martin Tétreault’s work, to rock in André Duchesne, to folk music of various cultures sort of sprinkled throughout all the pieces. Poetry is present in the many of the tracks but is particularly central to Genevieve Letarte’s La ragazza. My favorite work is Les Granules’ Le tango qui ne finit jamais — it combines kitsch with music-craft in a way that is at once sinister and charming. If you haven’t had the pleasure of aurally ogling anything from Ambiances magnétiques, I strongly recommend La bastringue migratoire.

Una valida introduzione alla scena sperimental-creativa (passata e presente) di Montréal ci è dato dal sampler dell’etichetta Ambiances Magnétiques (distr. Megatalogo) La bastringue migratoire — vol. 1, in particolarissima confezione sagomata e con booklet ricco di note: dalle inquiete improvvisazioni del pluristrumentista René Lussier, curatore della scaletta, al godibile camerismo di Robert Marcel Lepage, dal jazz in bilico fra nostalgia e modernismo di Les Granules e Jean Derome et les Dangereux Zhoms al maturo >rock d’autore> di Andre Duchesne, dai montaggi plagiaristi di Martin Tétreault a vari altri nomi oscuri ma tutti da scoprire (8).

Dirigée par Joane Hétu depuis sa création en 1989, la maison de disques DAME — plus de 50 albums en catalogue — n’a pas changé d’un iota sa mission et ses objectifs: favoriser la visibilité d’artistes innovateurs et distribuer des musiques d’avant-garde, et ce, aussi bien au niveau national qu’international.

Et voici qu’en juin dernier, pour ouvrir la porte au grand public, DAME lançait sa première compilation, son premier catalogue sonore, Ambiances Magnétiques —La bastringue migratoire voL 1. On y retrouve des musiques puisses à même le répertoire discographique de l’étiquette indépendante Ambiances Magnétiques.

Cette compilation, où 16 œuvres sélectionnéss avec soin se côtoient, nous présente des musiciens et compositeurs tels que Michel F Côté, Jean Derome, André Duchesne, Joane Hétu, Diane Labrosse, Robert Marcel Lepage, René Lussier ou Danielle Palardy Roger. Ces artistes, qui explorent des musiques issues de courants présents (folklore, rock, free jazz, musique contemporaine, chanson, bruitisme, ordinateur, etc. ), poursuivent leur rêve: «se donner le plus de chances possible de se maintenir libres et autonomes, responsables et engagés face à la musique d’aujourd’hui». Soyez vigilants, restez vivants est leur slogan.

Alors, si votre énergie compositrice puise ses forces dans la musique actuelle et de recherche, ou si vos oreilles rêvent d’expériences et de découvertes extra-radiophoniques, vous êtes mûrs pour faire la rencontre de ces inclassables de la musique.