empreintes DIGITALes, the superb Canadian-based label, has released more outstanding computer and electronic music. Jon Appleton’s Contes de la mémoire is a compilation of works from one of electronic music pioneer’s of the 1960s. Robert Normandeau Tangram finds the Montréal composer’s work dense and abstract, much like a Chinese puzzle in hyper-space. German-born Hildegard Westerkamp’s Transformations is an environmental musique, concrete-inspired CD that is magnificent in its treatment of natural sounds transformed into musical statement. Her use of a slowed-down sound of a raven in Beneath the Forest Floor, turning it into a rhythm instnument, is brilliant and haunting.
