hORs TempS, du duo Géraldine Eguiluz et Michel F Côté, sorti sur Ambiances Magnétiques (label canadien de musique actuelle). Le résultat est un mélange puissant et étrange: instruments acoustiques et électroniques se mêlent à des sonorités réinterprétées et à des traitements atmosphériques, tandis que des thèmes spirituels, ancestraux et personnels s’entremêlent. Résolument inclassable, l’album juxtapose un assortiment de fragments puisés dans différents univers, et, à l’instar des carreaux soigneusement disposés d’une mosaïque, ces pièces individuelles diverses forment un tout cohérent.

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.