Jon Vaughn invites everyone to a celebration around the CD Front, recently released on the No Type label. Many performnces are scheduled, amongst other an electroacoustic presentation by Steve Reed, dj sets by Holzkopf and Scant Intone and video interventions by Carrie Gates. In the absence of Max Haiven, Jon Vaughn will perform a solo version of Front. This CD launch will be held Friday December 26, 2003 at Saskatoon’s AKA Gallery.

Todd Drootin makes happy fun-time techno, the kind of playful, whimsical music that would work best soundtracking Japanese anime or chase sequences involving Tonka trucks. He’s a compulsive tinkerer; with their squishy sound effects, caffenaited tracks like See you in Tokyo and She’s dead to me have the feel of push-button improv, as if Drootin is checking the full capabilities of his circuitry whule he’s recording. Unlike so much electro-funk, Sings the Blues offers a lot of interesting terrain to explore. Grade: B+

Two new long-awaited releases from French label Ina-GRM (Groupe de recherches musicales). Firstly, the reissue of Bernard Parmegiani’s Violostries, a 6-work double CD dating back from what he calls The Age of Sewing, a “period when scissors helped us calibrate sounds and silences.” Finally, the new CD Labyrinthe! by Pierre Henry, a sound expedition in 10 sequences, premiered at an historical GRM concert in March 2003.

The original soundtrack recording from Patrick Bokanowski’s movie L’Ange (“The Angel”) is now available on CD. Composed almost 30 years ago by Michèle Bokanowski, the music links together American minimalism, classic contrapuntal writing, and “musique concrète” while keeping a curious feeling of “archaic pre-sampler.”

An excerpt of the work Beneath The Forest Floor by Hildegard Westerkamp is included in the soundtrack of the film Elephant, by American filmmaker Gus Van Sant, winner of both the Palme d’Or and Best Director prizes of the 2003 Cannes Film Festival. The music from and inspired by the motion picture is now available on French label MK2.

Voici la preuve que l’on peut vraiment obtenir de l’or grâce à l’alchimie. En mélangeant les ingrédients électroacoustiques de Gilles Gobeil (montage, mise en espace, synthèse et transformation sonores) aux concoctions actualistes de René Lussier (guitares, daxophone, plate-forme sensible, Achille lumineux) et à de multiples couches de références au mythe de Faust, le duo Gobeil/Lussier réussit le grand œuvre. Véritable épopée sonore, Le Contrat renouvelle le genre tout en renouant avec la tradition des grands cycles électroacoustiques (on pense à La Divine comédie de Bayle et Parmegiani, par exemple). Le Duel, un duo pour guitare et fleuret, deviendra un morceau d’anthologie, comme La Cathédrale, petit bijou d’intégration de sources sonores différentes. Du grand art. 4,5/5