Monopole: Music for Headphones
Georges Azzaria
Georges Azzaria, just like some other obscure personalities (Phil Dadson, Don Buchla, Harry Partch, Maxime Rioux), is a member of the very select club of inventors of instruments. Beyond this singularity, his sound sculptures, a skillful maelstrom of lo-fi microphones, recycled objects and amplifiers, generate a highly personal sonic universe. His work has been presented in museum exhibitions, performances, radio shows and theater plays.
With the appearance of Monopole, Azzaria’s unique experimentation with invented, handcrafted, tortured, hybridized, doctored instruments — the only work of its kind in Quebec — is made accessible. Georges Azzaria has been making and remaking his “recreatures” for exhibitions and concerts for more than 15 years. These sound objects, made up of winds, strings, turntables and two-way radios, have traveled from Quebec to Warsaw. Azzaria plays both solo and with others, mixing genres and styles.
A 36-page booklet offers colour reproductions of more than 30 instruments. The booklet also includes a text by Fabrice Montal entitled “Sport Recreatures”. Although fictional, the biographical, historical and theoretical content of his text, in fact, closely resembles reality. These handicraft-collage objects, are somehow reminiscent of old-fashioned children’s’ toys or Dada inventions, catalogue items from imaginary stores or pataphysical inventories.
The Monopole CD includes 30 studio and concert recordings. Amidst filing sounds and screams, there are a multitude of references to music and its small and large monopolies. In these transvestited objects is revealed the acrobatic pleasure the creator had in subverting industrial production — grimacing at the history of Music, at the mechanical reproduction of sound, at the generally accepted idea of progress as constructed over decades by the Western world.
With this publication, Avatar and OHM Editions affirm once again their specific commitment to producing and diffusing audio art. At the same time, they affirm the honourable right to make music without even knowing it, and the equally honourable right to compose philosophical works of art without having to write.
- PAArcand, The Compiler
- Composer(s): Georges Azzaria
- Author(s): Fabrice Montal
CD (AVTR 028)
- 1
- 9
- 23
- Label: OHM / Avatar
- AVTR 028
- 2001
- 127 mm × 145 mm × 8 mm
- 95 g