Je savais (eh, j’ai bonne mémoire!) qu’Éric Normand était bassiste c’est pourquoi quand j’ai entendu les premières secondes de son Mattempa j’ai eu peur qu’il soit passé à la trompette ou au saxophone et qu’il s’y essaye en solo au chiantissime canardage de salive. Mais en fait non. Sur cette œuvre (la première d’une série) inspirée par l’écrivain Jacques Ferron (1921-1985), Normand dirige des amis à tour de (clé de?) bras: Raphaël Arsenault (violon), Antoine Létourneau-Berger (percussions), Philippe Lauzier (clarinette basse et sax soprano) et Alexandre Robichaud (trompette de poche).

Nos musiciens s’en trouvent embarqués sur des compositions inspirées par «le» Gaspé-Mattempa de Ferron dont un extrait est retranscrit. Mystérieux, le texte = mystérieuse, la musique. C’est une drôle d’ambiance, pour dire la vérité, qui plane et que peuvent faire éclater (mais seulement le temps de leur durée) une mélodie jouée ensemble par les vents ou un pas de deux improvisé. C’est en tout cas un bel hommage (de Normand à Ferron) et une belle découverte (que ce Normand et que ce Ferron).

Who would have thought that viola da gamba and harmonica blend so well together! Martel’s hour-long Estinto firmly aligns him with late Cage and the Wandelweiser group, composers / performers of slower, silence-filled music. The combination sounds precisely like a shō which recalls Cage’s similarly paced One^9. Martel typically provides two closely spaced notes at once on harmonica and gamba, but ofttimes two notes on gamba and a third on harmonica, or two harmonica notes with a gamba tone. The experience can be to puzzle out what’s being sounded, or it can be simply to enjoy the weighted but calming tones and alternating embracing silences.

Postmodern to the tip of his orchestral bow, Montréal-based Pierre-Yves Martel has created a single track, 54-minute CD dedicated to estinto or extinguished timbres, that is ones sounded briefly and barely audibly. Yet he’s created this futuristic equivalent of a visual artist’s sparse canvas using primordial and Baroque-era instruments — harmonica and soprano viola da gamba respectively — often played synchronously if not in harmony.

Interlaced among these textures, which at points can suggest ratcheting percussion or harmonium-like euphony, are protracted silences. Their frequent, but intermittent, presence becomes as much a part of the album’s soundtrack as the tones which sometimes swell northwards of pianissimo. Overall many of his narrative tones seem as fine as micron wire. Eventually though the peeping wheezes and single-string sweeps attain polyphonic cross talk encompassing varied tempos and pitches. Likely using scordatura or non-standard tuning to extend his viola da gamba’s range and techniques, during certain passages Martel produces electronic-reminiscent tones acoustically. With the track’s concluding minutes enlivened by a brief harmonic upsurge of bell-like peals before subsiding, the unique program continues to makes its haunting presence felt as much through cerebral memory as aurally.

Confirming one again the continued vitality of the first generation of Free Music avatars, at 76, saxophonist Roscoe Mitchell is still innovating with divergent aspects of, instrumentation and arrangements. One demonstration of this occurs Sunday October 16, when he leads a mixed, 15-member, Montréal-Toronto ensembles through several of his composition a part of the Music Gallery’s annual X-Avant Festival. […]

About half the musicians interpreting Mitchell’s Music Gallery compositions reside in Montréal. Some are part of Ensemble SuperMusique. Les accords intuitifs features a large group of improvisers playing compositions by alto saxophonist/vocalist Joane Hétu and guitarist Bernard Falaise, as well a contemporary pieces by violinist Malcolm Goldstein and two mid-1970s scores by Montréalers Yves Bouliane and Raymond Gervais. All tracks are moored in the territory where group concert music conventions, free-form soloing and rock-music tempos collide. Like researchers experimenting with space medicine discovering unexpected futuristic tropes, new currents arise when Martin Tétrault’s turntables, Vergil Sharkya’s synthesizer and Alexandre St-Onge or Nicolas Caloia’s electric basses are given leeway. Although the stop-time climaxes, cycling marches and the semi-serious vocalizing on Hétu’s Pour ne pas désespérer seul appear related more to Frank Zappa then Iannis Xenakis, Mitchell would recognize asides created by percussive AEC-pioneered little instruments, as well as sharpened saxophone cries that play off against Scott Thomason’s plunger trombone and Craig Pedersen’s soaring trumpet. Unsurprisingly, although Goldstein’s Jeux de cartes expands and contracts with tremolo flutters prodded by Danielle Palardy Roger and Isaiah Ceccarelli’s percussion, most of the crackling excitement is engendered by Joshua Zubot’s violin glissandi. Another stand-out performance is Gervais’ title track. Uncommonly contemporary, the piece mixes overhanging crescendos growled by the entire ensemble with spidery contrasts between the solo strategies of St-Onge and acoustic bassist Aaron Lumley. The ending is left unresolved as cymbal clanking finality is subverted by synthesizer squeaks and guitar string pops. […]

C’est un ballet délicat qu’a composé Jürg Frey et qu’interprète ici le Quatuor Bozzini — en 2004, les mêmes musiciens enregistraient, du même compositeur et pour le même label, Strings Quartets — et qui l’oblige même. Est-ce que String Quartet no. 3 (2010-2014), avec cet air qu’il a de respecter les codes, manipule en fait ses interprètes?

Dans un même mouvement, voici les cordes s’exprimant avec précaution puis allant et venant entre deux notes enfin dérivant au point de donner à leur association des couleurs d’harmonium. C’est que le vent emporte les archets et que les cordes, fragilisées par son passage, adoptent une tension dramatique qui n’est pas sans évoquer celle du Titanic de Bryars.

En compagnie des percussionnistes Lee Ferguson et Christian Smith, le quatuor interprète ensuite Unhörbare Zeit, suite de séquences instrumentales interrompues par des silences de plus en plus longs, et donc influents. Le flou artistique que respectent les violons ne leur impose aucun contraste: ils vont ensemble sur un battement sourd ou s’expriment d’un commun accord sur des paliers différents. Et c’est encore en instrument à vent qu’ensemble ils se transforment. Puisque Jürg Frey a changé l’air que les musiciens respirent en soufflantes partitions.