Hugo Blouin’s instrument is the double bass. To my ear, jazz centered on the bass tends to be more creative. It’s almost certainly more bouncy. And for someone like Blouin, who apparently never dismissed an idea for being too wacky, the sound can trend toward a bounding.

The ten songs on this album were inspired by conversations with friends. I think snippets of those are included, but my French is 40 years gone and my seventh grader (a second-year French student) walked out of the room when the music started playing. In any case, that alone might illustrate what the listener is in for here.

Manic? To a fault, though it’s a fault that makes my heart race. Blouin is clearly having a good time playing with this idea, and he thrashes through any number of jazz idioms (and plenty more after that) in fleshing out these conversations. There are a couple of contemplative moments, but even those are suffused with the spirit of experimentation. Blouin does not like to sit still.

I’m here for it. This is not free jazz. Blouin clearly composed and arranged these pieces. I imagine that some of his conversational partners also helped him flesh out this conversation-as-song conceit as well. Their obvious connection deepens the meaning of these pieces. Do I know what it’s all about? Of course not. In some ways, that mystery makes this even more alluring. The music, of course, is far more than enough.

Released via the long-standing Canadian label that is Ambiances Magnetiques as their cat.no. 284 on December 5th, 2k25 is hORs TempS, an — albeit rather unusual — collaborational album effort created by Geraldine Eguiluz and Michael F Cote which is based on a collection of early 90s cassette recordings by Eguiluz newly re-arranged into collages by herself before being further fragmented, enhanced, twisted, overdubbed, complimented and re-splintered by Cote to end up in a final form — this album. With a total of sixteen pieces rolled out over the course of roughly 42 minutes hORs TempS caters a highly fascinating and highly complex amalgamation of almost ritualistic Field Recordings with a Tribal attitude (Territoires Perdus #1), ethereal Freak Folk backed by eerie reverse tape loops (La Montana Y El Agua), glitches, cut-ups and Musique Concrete references, ghostly inner city Jazz (La Montana Y El Viento), dark and deeply nocturnal pieces with score’esque qualities like the ominous Les Grands Departs with its slightly dusty vintage feel and slightly off-kilter minor piano tones, echoes of Industrial, FoundSound and even bits of a chanson’esque attitude to be found in Despedida whereas cuts like La Montana Dorada open with a captivating melodic grandeur before defragmenting into a million Free Improv x Free Jazz informed details just to name a few. Highly interesting and defo an album to reveal a plethora of hidden layers over the course of many a listening session to come. And probably one speaking to all those who still remember the ’Ekkehard Ehlers Plays… ’ -series released via the Staubgold label in the early noughties which catered a similarly intimate and collage’esque overall feel at the time. Recommended.

Saxophonist and vocalist Joane Hétu has long been one of the leading figures in Montréal’s French-speaking avant-garde (e.g., the band Justine). She deserves to be better known in the Anglosphere, and this witty new collaboration with Ensemble SuperMusique should help.

Préparez-vous à un déferlement de sensations intrigantes et dérangeantes qui visent à vous stimuler mentalement. La partition composée par Nour Symon pour Je suis calme et enragé·e atteint son but, elle nous propulse en terra incognita en complément des poésies brumeuses écrites par Roxane Desjardins.

Ce sont avant tout les voix de Zéa Beaulieu-April, Gabriel Dharmoo, Laura Doyle Péan et Vincent Ranallo qui contribuent à la réussite de ce projet transdisciplinaire. Étourdissante, la conception lexicale s’intensifie perpétuellement comme en témoigne la deuxième partie de Je mourrai dans une pièce fermée. L’équilibre entre les déclamations vocales et les instrumentistes rehausse les explorations de Nous étions masques, miracles, empêtrées dans l’enthousiasme qui brille par sa théâtralisation. Des bribes de jazz s’insinuent dans le matériau musical imprégné par le sérialisme. L’esprit de Don Cherry est colporté par l’un des transfuges du Montréal-Toronto Art Orchestra, le trompettiste Craig Pedersen, qui émerge malicieusement de la masse orchestrale dans Ils ont dit que le ciel se couvrirait d’aiguilles. Cette composition animée par un enchaînement de mutations sonores s’étoffe avec les vifs coups d’archets administrés sur les cordes de Guido Del Fabbro, Émilie Girard-Charest et Stéphane Diamantakiou. Le déroulement de la totalité de l’œuvre déclenche une succession de chapitres partagés entre la tension et la détente, ce qui génère des surprises instantanées.

Le Printemps érable de 2012, grève étudiante la plus importante de l’histoire du Québec, de même que le désastre écologique en cours, nourrissent des interactions entre la phonétique française et un matériau sonore élaboré. Si une forme de désespérance se répand dans le concept de cette création, Nour Symon et Roxane Desjardins magnifient leur dialogue atypique qui vise à l’harmonie universelle.

These 6 tracks from Nour Symon showcase 4 vocalists who intone the music in chorus, plus 2 instrumental soloists from Collectif Ad Lib as well as by 6 instrumentalists from Ensemble SuperMusique.

Nous étions masques, miracles, empêtrées dans l’enthousiasme begins with a droning backdrop amid many voices that talk and sing, while the brief bouts of music is used sparsely, and J’espère être absoute follows with both dramatic and gentler moments, where strings are manipulated with much atmosphere.

Affalée sur le sol occupies the middle spot and is firm, nearly harsh, in its tense and emotive presence that employs guttural vocals, though it’s the 12 minutes of the highly experimental and ambient Ils ont dit que le ciel se couvrirait d’aiguilles that’s worth the price of admission, as voices are used like instruments and instruments are gestured with sci-fi tendencies.

Il n’y a rien à dire sur l’humanité exits the listen, and it’s a harmonic and percussively strong finish that builds into dense layers of strings, brass and winds.

A truly iconoclastic affair that embraces noise, poeticism, jazz and chamber nods, Nour Symon’s vision is entirely their own, and that’s a big part of the appeal.