Magali Babin se fraye un chemin à travers la matière grise. Matière froide, sans âme, elle tente de lui donner vie. D’une lame en acier trempé à un couvercle de casserole, Magali Babin explore tous les alliages du métal. Fonte de l’enregistrement. Elle forge les sons. Torsion, martèlement, étirement, soudure, cisaillement. Les voix se multiplient et bientôt se perdent dans la grisaille d’une pluie de limaille de fer. Corrosion. Le rythme s’oxyde progressivement. Les enregistrements (tels des photographies) sont punaisés au mur en guise de souvenir. Estompage de la mémoire. Grattage de la surface rouillée pour lui redonner son éclat. Donne à réfléchir.

Diane Labrosse takes pleasure in absurdity, harmony, dissonance, structure and improvisation. Her fascination with unconventional sounds has led her to digital sampling, to which she brings a hard-core approach. For the last fifteen years she has regularly appeared on contemporary, improvised and avant-garde music stages both in Canada and in Europe. Some of her projects are done with Île bizarre (Ikue Mori & Martin Tétreault), L’Oreille à vincent with Christof Migone, Michel F Côté, Martin Tétreault and sound sculptor Jean-Pierre Gauthier.

A self-taught composer, Aimé Dontigny is one of the founding members of the “free-noise” collective Napalm Jazz and of the electronic duo morceaux_de_machines. Dontigny has been working for empreintes DIGITALes and Ambiances Magnétiques. He devotes himself eagerly to the challenges of improvised music and is particularly interested in the development of new electronic music in Canada. His compositions are full of subtle quotes and his sonic palette adapts itself to many aesthetics, as reflected in his recent collaborations with Diane Labrosse

This collaboration is found on Télépathie a new release by No Type records. It is an intense listen, with a loud blend of sounds, movement and ambience. Recorded live on April 20th, 2002 this release captures the direct approach of their unique improvisations. Télépathie is a must for fans of noise, collage, explosions and just plain weird stuff. It definitely pushes the boundaries in music, composition, writing methods and approaches.

No Type records is a Montréal based record label that puts out on-line mp3, proper CD & vinyl recordings of some of the most outside music emanating from the fringes of Montréal & around the world. The label was founded in Quebec City in October of 1998 by David Turgeon, but the label relocated to Montréal 3 months later & has been there ever since. No Type has established itself as an important outlet for the bourgeoning Montréal free improv music scène releasing music often ignored by most in the music industry.

The label was started because, as Turgeon describes, “we had music to release & no money to make CD’s with” & when pressed to divulge what exactly the label’s vision & mission are, Turgeon notes, “when I try to define it I always fail… I like things that are strange, fun, exciting, damning or preferably all of the above.” In its relatively short existence No Type has earned a reputation for being a beautiful disaster of many “different” styles of music created by artists from all over the map of today’s contemporary music. “I don’t think it makes sense to restrain ourselves to one style,” Turgeon explains, “& besides, the label has always been about not really caring about the musical genre, so long as the music sounds good…”

No Type came into existence at an opportune moment in time & they’ve managed to capitalize on the increased popularity & availability of the mp3 format. But rather than devise a way to exploit the technology for immediate gain, No Type has opted to employ the “online-format” as a means to expose creative musicians whose undeniable talent & originality No Type has been among the first to acknowledge.

No Type’s web site hosts over 70 on-line releases (free with no strings attached) from such now-notables as Napalm Jazz, Books on Tape, Octopus Inc., Dick Richards, morceaux_de_machines, Philémon, GIJoe Killaz & the list goes on & on & on. And the onslaught of No Type releases shows no signs of stopping anytime soon with mp3 & traditional media releases by Coin Gutter, N.Kra, Click Tracy, Claudia Bonarelli & Headphone Science scheduled for release in 2003!

No Type’s biggest success to date has been the recent release of the landmark Montréal Freeimprov 4CD box set. This impressive document featuring the best of the Montréal Free improv scene has been in the making for a long time & this release offers a persistent snapshot of what it must be like spending time in many of the city of sin’s finer free improv venues with beer in hand. The set contains 4 different CD’s of spontaneous constructions by 4 different groups: (1) Po — “provocative operations”, (2) ’Gypt Gore, (3) Chris Burns, Nicolas Caloia, John Heward Trio — “presence” & (4) Balai Mécanique. The set is compiled in some pretty impressive packaging with original artwork by some of the performers & liner notes by Mathieu Bélanger. This box set is a gotta have for any fan of the Canadian Free improv landscape.

Visit the web site at www.notype.com for all the details & all the downloads. This site requires a couple of hits because there’s just so much to see, & hear & figure out.

Le Frith de demain c’est sans doute All Is Bright, But It Is Not Day. Constatant son incapacité à brouiller les pistes, Frith trouve en l’ingénieur du son Myles Boisen, un parfait docteur Mabuse, apte à transformer, détourner, contusionner la musique du trio Frith Derome Tanguay. Même si le traitement de son est réalisé en temps réel et avec parfois un respect certain du cadre originel (Where Your Children Are), cette succession de triturations mentales et rhéthodiques, ces soubresauts continuels, ce brouillage des sens me semble ici terriblement stérile. C’est de l’espoir qui s’envole dans ce western métallique au casting pourtant prometteur. Trop de brouillage détourne l’auditeur, aurait pu conclure l’expert Tati.

L’un des meilleurs moments de l’édition 2001 du FIMAV, la rencontre entre Jean Derome (flutes, sax), Pierre Tanguay (batterie) et leurs acolytes francais Bruno Chevillon (contrebasse) et Louis Sclavis (clarinettes, sax) a été pour beaucoup de monde un pur moment de bonheur. Virtuosite, pertinence et imagination sont au rendez-vous tout au long de l’heure que dure le disque. On ne saurait mieux illustrer la notion de «dialogue» entre des instnumentistes qu’avec les échanges exemplaires enregistrés ici, aussi clairs qu’une conversation a bâtons rompus entre gens de qualité. Jazz mutant métissé d’explorations sorores inouïes, cette musique prend des risques à chaque tournant, mais ne dérape jamais. Chacun des musiciens est exceptionnel, mais il faut souligner le travail de Bruno Chevillon, d’une très grande inventivité.